


Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

by TheOtherXOPrincess



Series: Special Powers and Other Catastrophies [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Never Met, Angst and Humor, Attorney!Quinn, Author!Tina, Consensual Mind Control, Cop!Puck, Dance Instructor!Rachel, Dancer!Mike, Drama & Romance, IT!Artie, Indecisive!Finn, Lecturer!Blaine, Mathematician!Brittany, Mental Link, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mind Manipulation, Mind Sex (implied), Mind control (kind of), Multi, Psychic Bond, Science Fiction Elements, Some Action, Stripper!Dani, Stripper!Santana, Surfer!Sam, Telepathic Bond, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vet!Mercedes, fashion designer!Kurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 44,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherXOPrincess/pseuds/TheOtherXOPrincess
Summary: Ten strangers from different parts of the US notice that they are suddenly telepathically, mentally and emotionally linked to each other. And they have absolutely no idea why.What if love gets involved? What if they find out they are not the only ones in the world who have this gift? What if not all of these people have good intentions?Yeah, life has never been more complicated.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Finn Hudson/Harmony, Kurt Hummel/Original Male Character(s), Mike Chang/Tina Cohen-Chang, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Past Dani/Santana Lopez, Quinn Fabray/Matt Rutherford (mentioned), Quinn Fabray/Noah Puckerman, Rachel Berry/Finn Hudson, Sam Evans/Mercedes Jones, Sam Evans/Penny Owen, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce, past Blaine Anderson/Hunter Clarington, past Rachel Berry/Brody Weston - Relationship
Series: Special Powers and Other Catastrophies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798681
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	1. First Signs

**Author's Note:**

> This story is loosely based on Sense8 as some of you have noticed. I have no idea why I keep on thinking of such crazy stories. 
> 
> No freaking idea.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy, my friends.
> 
> As usual, I do not own anything but that story.

_“That’s the worst storm I have ever witnessed”, nurse Annie said to her workmate that was busy putting another newborn baby into an empty bed of the nursery room “I hope it will stop soon, or else, my plants in my garden will be destroyed.”_

_With a concerned face expression, she stared out of the window, raindrops were running down the glass pane._

_Outside, a thunderstorm was blustering, the wind was so strong it just knocked down a couple who hurried to the entrance of the hospital, it was raining buckets._

_Annie wiped her forehead. “That’s the tenth baby, the beds are all taken now. Why are there so many births lately?”_

_Her workmate, Irma, shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe people have gotten too dumb to protect themselves while they-“ With a gesture, she showed Annie what she didn’t want to say out loud._

_Irma needed to laugh. “Someone’s suggestive. Or are you just horny? When was the last time you have been shagging a guy?”_

_“I am pan, Irm. I could as well have been shagging a woman”, Annie corrected her._

_Irma threw her a pitiful glance. “Did you already come out to your parents?”_

_The other nurse shook her head while she toyed with a blond baby’s hand._

_“And why not? I mean your parents are great, they wouldn’t judge you.”_

_“This are the nineties, Irm. Of course, they would judge me.” She sighed deeply and turned away from the other nurse. “The world just isn’t ready yet.” Smiling in a sad way, she pointed at the babies that were fortunately sleeping now, despite the horrible storm outside. “But maybe, it will be when those babies are grown up. Let’s hope that those kids get the chance to be themselves.”_

_Irma stepped closer to her friend and patted her shoulder. She didn’t know what to say. “You know what?”, she spoke up after a while. “I know what will cheer you up: A hot chocolate latte. Come on, let’s get you one from the cafeteria. My treat.”_

_Annie shrugged, so Irma took her by the arm and led her out of the nursery room._

_As soon as they had left the room, lighting suddenly struck the hospital’s building, and also the nursery room. All the lights went out, the sleeping babies in the nursery room woke up and started crying ear-piercingly when a small lightning spark electrified the bars of their beds._

_But for some inexplicable, mysterious reason, not even one of them was injured, or affected by the shock._

_For now._

_-Today-_

**_Miami, Florida_ **

With a fake seductive smile, Santana Lopez leaned against the polebar and glided down in a slow way, showing off her butt in a fiery red G-string and moving to the beat of the loud, obscene music.

“Sexy!”, the men slurred, throwing dollar bills to her direction. “Put off your bra!”

Santana stuffed the dollar bills into her bra, suppressing an insulting comment. Instead, she pulled one of the men closer by his tie and flashed her best flirtatious stage smile.

Said man looked more than aroused according to his lustful glance, and Santana was glad that his gaydar seemed to be broken as hell.

Because the more oblivious they were, the higher her tip would be. Who knew, maybe she would be able to afford that sexy cashmere coat one day.

But first, she needed to bite her tongue and be nice to those horny perverts, make them feel like she was actually into them.

Dani, one of the other strippers dancing next to her, winked at her as if she wanted to say: ‘Only a couple more minutes until we can call it a day, hold on.’

So Santana refrained herself from rolling her eyes when the men started drooling after she let them sniff on her bra.

**_Seattle, Washington_ **

Frustrated, Kurt Hummel put down his pen and rubbed his forehead. Did he just imagine it, or did he just hear loud music with inappropriate, not PG-rated lyrics? For a split second, he had seen how half naked women around him were dancing to explicit music. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Maybe, he just watched to much TV lately.

Because now, he was sitting on the couch of his silent living room, trying to sketch designs. His neighbors were on vacation, so he probably just imagined things.

Sighing deeply, he got up from the couch and walked over to the window of his living room. Outside, it was raining, when he looked down his apartment window, he could see people underneath countless umbrellas in different colors that were hurrying down the street.

Now at seven pm, the streets were crowded with people that wanted to go/drive home, the traffic jam was never ending, car drivers were honking impatiently.

Kurt startled when his doorbell suddenly rang, and went to the entrance door to answer it. And was more than surprised about the visitor.

“Finn?”

**_New York City, New York_ **

“Okay, guys, that’s enough for today. Now, go home and rehearse all the dance steps we learned this session.”

The children didn’t quite hear anymore what she was saying, they had already gathered their belongings and left the dance studio, chatting loudly with each other.

Rachel Berry wiped away her sweat with her handkerchief and sat down on her stool beside the piano to take a sip of her water bottle. The next classes would be in one and a half hour, until then, she still had time for going over to Subway and have a snack.

So she grabbed her coat and her bonnet, locked the dance studio and left the building of the Juilliard School, whistling _Don’t Rain on My Parade_ on her way _._

**_New Orleans, Louisiana_ **

“Dude, why the hell are you whistling that gay song of that Streisand chick?”, Jake Puckerman asked his older brother Noah “Puck” Puckerman while they were sneaking into a house with their guns in their hands.

Puck shrugged. “No idea, man. I was in the mood for Streisand I guess.”

When Jake wanted to open the apartment door, it was locked. He exchanged glances with Puck.

“NOPD, open the door!”, Jake shouted, but nobody reacted.

Puck motioned him to step aside, and he stepped back, started running towards the door – and kicked it in.

With their guns in their hands, they entered – and were surprised to see an elderly woman on a rocking chair. She looked up, surprised.

“Gentlemen!”, she greeted them nicely. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“Ma’am, we got complains of your neighbors because…”

“What?” The woman furrowed her eyebrows.

“Noise disturbance!”, Jake repeated loudly.

“Oh…” The woman nodded. “I am so sorry. I turned on loud music because I can’t find my hearing aid.”

Puck nodded. “No problem, ma’am. But next time, please be considerate of your neighbors.”

“That’s why we needed to kick in a door?”, Puck said disappointedly when they left. “Because of a deaf grandma? Cops in New Orleans are not challenged enough.”

**_Milwaukee, Wisconsin_ **

With a frown, Blaine Anderson read through the articles one of his students gave in as homework. He shook his head as he graded it with a red F. As if he couldn’t notice the difference between professionally written theses and those of a college freshman.

And the sad thing was that this student didn’t even try to add his own input, he just copied the entire article from the internet, typing in the first sentence into Google had been enough to find it. After all, he was a student himself(a master’s student, but let’s not dwell on that…), he knew exactly how copy and paste worked.

After having taken another sip of his coffee, Blaine retrieved another article from the stack of articles he still needed to read and grade.

Why did he agree to work as a lecturer again even if he was still a student?

Right, because of the money.

He sighed.

He still needed to get his own homework done because its deadline was tonight.  
This was going to be a long, long evening, and he already felt tired and demotivated. Blaine stretched his arms and yawned loudly.

**_San Diego, California_ **

Mercedes Jones frowned confusedly when she felt so demotivated all of a sudden and needed to suppress a yawn. Where the hell was that coming from? She normally loved her job, so why not now? Shrugging, she put on her white coat and tied up her hair before she entered the office.

“Ms. Jones!”, her boss Dr. William Schuester said and smiled at her when she closed the door behind her. “How are you today? Did you fall asleep during classes again?”

“Fine, I guess”, Mercedes shrugged. “And no. Today, they were actually interesting.” She looked at the dog the doctor was holding and caressing consolingly. “What’s wrong with our little friend?”

“He sprained his ankle, but it’s nothing serious, don’t worry.” He handed her the brown spaniel and turned around to search through his equipment. “We just need to bandage it up so that the injury doesn’t get worse whenever he limps around.”

“Did you already cool the ankle down?”, Mercedes asked him.

Dr. Schuester nodded. “I was about to do it, but now, that you are here, you could take over while I will search for some painkillers. The cool bag is already on the desk.”

Mercedes carefully put the dog on the sickbed and put the coolbag onto his ankle. The dog started whimpering quietly.

“Don’t be afraid, buddy”, she said softly while she ruffled the chocolate brown fur between his ears. “You will feel better in no time.”

**_Portland, Oregon_ **

With her reading glasses on her nose, Tina Cohen-Chang stared down the keyboard of her MacBook, scowling.

Because it happened.

The feared writer’s block overwhelmed her. Now of all days! Why?

Frustrated, she slammed shut her laptop and got up. Even best seller authors were not immune to a lack of inspiration. How she wrote her previous love novels, she had no idea. Exactly those novels that were on top of the bestseller list on the entire continent.

But the author of all those award-winning books wasn’t Tina Cohen Chang. It was _Vivian Kennedy_ , her pseudonym. Why she chose not to publish all her stories under her real name?

Firstly because she wanted to stay anonymous. People on the streets didn’t really have to know that she wrote _Dangerous Passion_ , one of her more sexually explicit novels. She wanted to stay grounded, otherwise, all of her works could change as well.

Secondly, Tina knew that people would rather read the novel of a white author than of an Asian-American one unless a minority was the lead. That’s why she had chosen a typical American name that wouldn’t give away her skin color or her identity.

Those were the two most important reasons why Tina wouldn’t tell the world who Vivian Kennedy really was. People who looked up to her would look at her differently or wouldn’t read her books at all.

She kind of felt like Hannah Montana with her double life, only that her microphone was WordPress and her singing voice was her story.

**_Honolulu, Hawaii_ **

Sam paddled back to the beach, lying on his surfboard and laughing while he brushed the water from his face.

“You are the greatest surfer the world has ever seen, Evans”, Penny who was lying on her board as well, laughed. “You were like a beast out there, as if you would declare war on the waves, it was creepy as hell.”

“Otherwise, they notice immediately that they can control you, not the other way around”, Sam explained to her.

In the meanwhile, they had arrived on the shore and got up.

“Did you already sign up for the next tournament?”, he asked Penny while they walked towards their towels.

Penny shook her head. “Tomorrow, Eddie will fly over, and we want to spend the week together. I have no time for my training.”

Eddie was Penny’s older brother that lived in Connecticut.

“Besides, I am not in the mood. We all know who will win.”

Sam rubbed his neck. “Nonsense.”

But she wasn’t wrong. Sam had won the local surfing tournament three years in a row and even considered taking part at more serious competitions.

“Next stop: Olympics, right?” Penny wiggled her eyebrows.

Sam nudged her amicably, laughing while they walked down the sandy beach.

**_Manchester, New Hampshire_ **

When the jury found her client not guilty, Quinn Fabray sighed a breath of relief. In her mind, of course.

Another won case. Life was great.

After they had left the courtroom, her client, a nineteen-year-old boy, beamed at her. “Thank you so much, Miss Fabray. I told the judges a hundred times that I didn’t steal the car and you made them believe me.”

He pulled her into a hug, and Quinn just stiffened, cocking her eyebrows. “I just did my job, Mr. Paisley”, she answered professionally and pulled away. “If you would excuse me, I have to go. I still have plans.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line when she noticed how he stared at her butt while she walked to her car.

When she sat in front of the steering wheel, all she could think about was getting rid of those killer heels and that tight sheath dress and curling up on her couch with a hot chocolate, screw the calories.

Frowning, Quinn sniffed in the air. Why did she smell marine air all of a sudden?

**_Seattle, Washington_ **

Finn Hudson honestly didn’t plan to show up at the place where his stepbrother lived. But he had no idea where else to go.

“What are you doing here?”, Kurt asked him skeptically after he had let him in. “Aren’t you supposed to be in…god knows where?”

“Well…it didn’t go according to plan”, Finn admitted. “The coffeeshop in Detroit where I worked went bankrupt and I lost my job. So I took my belongings, took the next flight to Washington and came here.”

Kurt crossed his arms, cocking his eyebrows. “Job? I thought you wanted to go to college again.”

Finn sheepishly rubbed his neck. “Well…I dropped out.”

“Again??” Kurt facepalmed. “It’s the fourth college now, Finn. You said yourself that you wanted to study IT management as a major. What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I didn’t like it”, Finn defended himself. “It wasn’t what I wanted to do. It just didn’t feel right.”

“That’s what you said about the three other colleges and your previous majors as well”, Kurt pointed out. “What are your next steps?”

Finn shrugged helplessly. “I want to find my vocation or however it’s called. And…” He looked down before he continued talking “I wondered whether I could stay in Seattle for the time being. At your place.”

“You are kidding me, right?”

“Please, Kurt, you are my last hope”, Finn pleaded with puppy dog eyes. “I will search for a job, I will help you with the rent, I will do everything you want me to!”

For a while, Kurt just stared at him with an unreadable face expression.

“Fine!”, he gave in eventually, and Finn’s eyes lit up.

“Thanks so much, you won’t regret it”, he assured him.

But why did Kurt get the feeling that he would?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, I just introduced the ten people who are or will be affected, their friends and allies will appear with the passage of time.
> 
> What do you think? :D


	2. The Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nope. Still don't own anything.

Rachel left Subway after she had eaten her cesar salad. She had no idea why she always went to Subway to eat her snack even though she wanted to change her diet for months. But since that incident had destroyed her prospects of ever making it to Broadway, her discipline was at rock bottom, and whenever she saw one of those good-looking muffins or cookies of the bakery next to her apartment, she got weak.

Sighing, she crossed the crowded street to walk back to the building of Juilliard, after all, her next students were already waiting.

And gasped for air when she saw a man in front of her that was about to undress placidly.

...

All he wanted to do was take a shower after his trip from Detroit to his stepbrother’s place. When he was in Kurt’s (and for the time-being, his) bathroom, Finn started opening the zipper of his jeans and put it off, just like his shirt.

“What in god's name do you think you are doing?!”, someone suddenly shrieked.

Finn jumped a few inches in the air when he heard the voice. He slowly turned his head – and saw a brown-haired woman standing next to him with an aghast face expression.

“What the-“

“You see, there are rules here in America”, the woman started berating him. “I’m not against nudists, but I think there are special places for them, and also for you.”

Finn cocked his eyebrows confusedly. “How long have you been standing here?”

“Long enough, that’s for sure”, the woman replied dryly. She looked around irritatedly. “Why do people keep on staring at me? I cannot be the only one who has seen you, right?”

What the hell was going on?

“Which people?”, Finn asked her.

The woman looked at him with a bewildered face expression. “People that are…”

“Finn?” Kurt had entered the bathroom and was looking at him with a frown. “I heard you talking. Are you okay?”

Finn looked at him, more confused than ever. “Yes, but that woman…”

“What woman? There is nobody but the two of us in that room.”

When Finn turned his head to the direction where that mysterious woman had just been standing, nobody was there.

“But I swear, she has just been there!”, Finn exclaimed, stunned. “I also talked to her.”

All Kurt could do was shake his head about his stepbrother’s imagination. “You need to go see a doctor. Maybe, you are about to lose it.” With that, he left the bathroom again, closing the door behind him.

Finn rubbed his eyes and stared at the spot for a couple of minutes before he shrugged and undressed fully to take a shower, blaming that hallucination on the pills against travel sickness he took earlier that day.

* * *

“Are you in the mood for Thai food?”

Tina grinned when she let in her guest that had just been ringing on her door.

“Perfect timing, Artie, I have been starving”, she sighed relievedly, and Artie rolled to her living room and put the takeaway boxes onto the table. Her eyes lit up when she opened her box. “Green Thai chicken curry with rice noodles – You are the best!”

“And your favorite appetizer: Coconut Shrimp Soup with peas.”, Artie smiled when he retrieved another takeway box from the bag. “I told them to mince the shrimps as well because that’s the way you love it.”

“Thank you so much, Artie”, Tina thanked him and gave him a hug. “You are the best best friend I could wish for.”

Artie grinned from ear to ear. “I know”, he joked. “That’s also what the mug says you have given to me last year.”

With crossed legs, Tina sat down on the couch in front of her flatscreen TV and took the remote, Artie rolled to the spot next to the couch with his food on his lap. “What kitschy movie will we watch on Netflix now? To all the boys I've loved before? Again?”

Tina looked at him with puppy dog eyes. “Would you mind?”

Artie laughed. “You know, there are hundreds of other movies on that platform and we only watch one all the time.”

“It’s just I love this movie”, Tina gushed. “There are not that many Asian leads in US-American movies. Whites: Yes. Black people: Yes. Latinas and Latinos: Also yes. But Asians are definitely underrepresented, and that’s not okay.”

“I wouldn’t say anything if I was you, _Vivian Kennedy_ ”, Artie teased her. "Why do you hide your real identity from the world?"

“That’s an entirely different situation, you know that”, Tina defended herself, pouting.

Artie just looked at her with a frown. “Is it?”, he muttered while he bit into his shrimp.

Luckily, Tina hadn’t heard him.

* * *

“Hey, Lopez!”

Dani was running after her when Santana left the Striptease Club and hailed a cab.

The two of them got in, and Dani scooted closer to the Latina, smiling seductively and touching her thigh.

“Dani, I already told you: We can’t”, Santana explained to her friend slowly, putting her hand away.

Dani sighed. “The old Santana I knew would jump at the chance to do it with me any time, even on the backseat of a cab. Why did you become such a bore lately? What had gotten into you?”

What had gotten into her was a certain blonde she had met at the coffeeshop around the corner of _Wilderness_ , the Striptease bar where Santana and Dani were working.

A blonde named Brittany Pierce.

Brittany Pierce had been her old childhood friend, and they had been inseparable back then in kindergarten, preschool and primary school. When they were thirteen, Brittany got a scholarship for a school for intellectually gifted kids like her, so she moved away from Florida to Massachusetts which was hours away.

They tried staying in touch for a while, but after a couple of years, they lost sight of each other.

But now, Brittany was back, obviously.

A couple of days ago, Santana had spotted her at Starbucks where she drank a hot chocolate and had a phone call. For some reason, Santana didn’t dare coming over to her table and hid behind the counter until the blonde left again.

After that, Santana had retrieved her iPhone and stalked Brittany on her Instagram account. Turned out that she had a Bachelor and Master of Mathematics from MIT (the photos with the diplomas in her hands she had posted prove it) and was about to write her dissertation for her PhD.

All Santana could think was what a genius Britt needed to be. And felt something like pride. Back then, everyone except for Santana was convinced that Brittany was just simple-minded and dumb, but boy, they were all wrong. That Britt had proven them all wrong was just unbelievable.

Whether Santana felt inadequate? _Not at all._ But she still didn’t have the guts to talk to her former friend. She and Britt hadn’t talked to each other for thirteen years. Whether Britt still remembered her? Whether she was good enough for her? After all, Brittany was something like a female Einstein with all her degrees, and Santana was just a stripper that only graduated from highschool and dropped out of college after the first few weeks.

Okay, she was wrong. She _definitely_ felt inadequate.

But she wouldn't tell Dani about it, she just wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Especially not with her ex.

“Nothing. I am just not in the mood”, Santana decided to answer. When the cab stopped in front of her apartment, she got out. “Good night, Dani.”

“Are you sure?”, Dani asked her with her sexy whispery voice, smiling seductively. "That would be a shame. You know how much fun we had in the past."

With all the might she had, Santana turned away. No, she wouldn’t win her over like that. Not tonight. That trick wouldn’t work this time.

“I have never been surer before”, Santana answered in a nonchalant tone before she closed the car door, stepped back and watched the cab drive off.

Sighing, she turned around and walked to the entrance door of the giant apartment complex. Hopefully, she would have enough courage to talk to Brittany tomorrow.

* * *

“I am so sorry I am late again.” Out of breath, Kurt arrived at the restaurant where a certain ginger man was already waiting at their table. “My boss needed me longer than expected.”

“It’s okay, Kurt”, Vincent, his boyfriend answered, smiling at him softly. “You already texted me, you didn’t need to apologize as well.”

“You are so understanding, I don’t deserve you”, Kurt said to him and smiled from ear to ear. His smile faltered when he saw what liquid was in Vincent’s glass. It looked so brown -greenish, almost like…puke. “What in god’s name are you drinking?”

“My new diet”, Vincent explained to him and showed him his glass. “Low-carb smoothie, it contains hydrogen peroxide, so it’s good for my skin as well.”

Kurt grimaced. “So this is supposed to be your lunch? Vince, you know how much I hate eating proper food beside you while you are just drinking that…that slime! You are a grown up man, is it even healthy to skip your meals day by day?”

Vincent threw him a killing glance. “You know that I would do everything for my job, babe, even if I have to pass on proper food and drink some slime instead.”

Sighing deeply, Kurt said: “I know, I know, and I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…I have so many designs to sketch, the deadlines are getting closer and closer and I don’t know whether I will make it in time.”

“Of course, you will, Kurt”, Vincent assured him, looking convinced. “I mean, you are Kurt Hummel. You even designed a coat for poodles within 24 hours. You are a genius.”

Kurt looked at him lovingly. “I don’t know how I deserved you. You are the best boyfriend I could wish for.”

“Don’t say that”, Vince answered him back with the same loving face expression. “I don’t know how I deserved you. From the first day we have met, you have been special to me. You overshadowed everyone in the room with your confidence and your sovereignty. At the same time, you are the most caring person I know. Kurt, I love you.”

Suddenly, Vincent got up and walked towards Kurt whose eyes had widened in shock. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, grow old with you. I want you to be part of my life forever.” Vincent knelt down in front of him and retrieved a box from his blazer’s pocket. Kurt gasped for air, everyone in the restaurant went silent. “Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, do you want to marry me?”

Kurt didn’t need to think twice before he answered with a fervent: “Yes!” He took the ring from the box and put it on, then, he grabbed Vince and kissed him passionately.

People around them applauded, some of them had tears in their eyes. But while Kurt kissed a jubilant Vincent, the man he was supposed to love and the man with whom he supposedly wanted to spend the rest of his life, he couldn’t help but wonder whether he had taken the right decision.

Because deep, deep down, he knew that Vince wasn't the right one.

* * *

With her guitar, Mercedes sat down on the barstool of the stage and took the microphone. “Hey, guys. It’s me again. I wrote another song, it’s called _Colorblind_. Hope you like it.”

That’s how she spent her free Friday nights, whenever she wasn’t busy with writing her doctoral thesis or taking care of injured guinea pigs at Dr. Schuester’s office: Performing songs at the local bar.

When she was little, Mercedes wanted to become a singer-songwriter, like Beyoncé or Aretha Franklin. She wanted to be the biggest popstar the world had ever seen. She wanted people to know her name and to love her music.

But unfortunately, her parents were not so thrilled about her idea.

“Are you aware that you are black, Mercedes?”, Naomi Jones had asked her when she was twelve.

“Yes?”, Mercedes didn’t understand why her mother asked her that question.

Naomi and Conor, her dad, had exchanged worried glances.

“In the western world, black people need to struggle more than white people do”, Conor explained slowly. “It’s harder for people like us to get good jobs just because of us being black. If we fail, the whites will blame it on the color of our skin.”

“That’s why you need to be better than them, sweetie”, Naomi added. “You need to get the best grades, go to a good college and prove them all wrong. You will be the one who laughs last once you have a higher educational degree, a well-paid job and can afford a Porsche. Or a Lamborghini. But being a singer isn’t the right way, believe us.”

“But…”

“Becoming a singer is just a childish dream, Mercedes. It’s time for you to grow up and think of a more realistic goal. Don't forget: You are black, the world isn't that forgiving to you if you don't make it.”

So Mercedes gave up her dream and started working hard to make her parents proud. With her straight A average GPA, she got into Stanford where she took veterinary medicine as a major and got her bachelor’s and master’s degree. In order to write her doctoral thesis and to start working at Dr. Schuester’s office whose assistant doctor had retired not long ago, she had returned to San Diego. Since she had not that many classes to attend anymore as a Ph.D. student, she could continue her studies via distance learning, a brand-new concept at Stanford.

Singing in that bar was the only thing that was still left from her childhood dream. Yes, she learned to love her current job, but sometimes, she wondered whether her life would have been different if her parents hadn’t convinced her to search for another dream.

When she was done with her song, people in the audience applauded.

Mercedes cocked her eyebrows when she saw a blond man among the clapping people, she was sure he hadn’t been there before. He looked moved by her performance and was blinking some tears back.

When Mercedes blinked, the man was gone.

What the…?

Taking her guitar, she left the stage again and decided to leave the smoky bar to clear her head. After she did so, Mercedes walked over to the pier that was right next to the bar, leaned against the railings and looked up the star covered sky.

The nights in San Diego were warm, a soft breeze was ruffling Mercedes’ weave and she brushed back a strand.

“Your song…was beautiful”, someone next to her suddenly spoke up.

Startled, Mercedes turned her head. How was that even possible? She had been all alone when she walked down the pier, nobody followed her.

But for some inexplicable reason, the mysterious man she had just seen at the bar was now standing next to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, we learned more about some of our main characters' background stories...


	3. What is Happening to Us?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything.

Sam didn’t know what had just happened to him. One moment, he was about to cook dinner in his kitchen of his tiny bungalow, the next, he found himself standing at a bar, listening to that beautiful African American woman sing. He doubted he had ever seen a more talented woman in his life before.

It wasn’t just her voice that enthralled Sam. It was her aura, her passion, her suppressed longing. Her sadness.

Sam had no idea where all these emotions were suddenly coming from. He needed to blink back tears and gather himself before he followed her out of the bar. When he looked around, he noticed that he had never been at that place before.

But for some reason, he was not concerned at all.

“Thank you”, the woman answered, trying to hide her blush.

For a while, the two of them were just standing next to each other, listening to the rush of the seawater underneath the pier.

“What is this place?”, Sam finally dared to ask. If he was hallucinating, he at least wanted to have more details.

The woman looked at him, smiling softly. “We are in San Diego. Why are you asking? Are you a tourist?”

Sam shook his head. “Call me crazy, but actually, I am not at San Diego.” When he blinked, the surroundings had suddenly changed again – he was standing in his kitchen, and so was the woman. “I am at Honolulu. Far away from California.”

The woman gasped when she walked over to Sam’s stove and touched his pan. “What…How…But…”

She was unable to form a sentence.

Even though Sam was as stunned as she was, he needed to smile. “Funny that you are standing in my kitchen and we don’t even know each other’s names.” He politely stuck out his hand. “I am Sam. Sam Evans. Nice to meet you, mylady.”

She laughed when she shook his hand. “Mercedes Jones.” Mercedes’ smile vanished and she looked at Sam anxiously. “So what do you think, Sam? Are we hallucinating?”

Sam retrieved his smartphone and unlocked it. “There is only one way to find out.”

“Which is?”

“Tell each other our phone numbers and call each other to check whether we are not imagining things.”

* * *

It was late at night when Quinn walked down the street to her house, the high heels clicking was the only noise that could be heard. It was kind of creepy.

Why did she need to stay at her office for so long, why didn’t she just go home earlier?

Quinn paranoidly looked around to check whether nobody was following her.

And yelped when she was suddenly dragged to a side street. A duo of scrawny men was looking at her, one of them had a gun in his hands.

“Well, look at that, whom do we have here?”, guy number one said sneeringly, and Quinn’s eyes widened in shock when she spotted the gun.

“Who are you?”, she asked anxiously. “Do you want my money? Take everything you want, but please, leave me alone”, she pleaded.

The guys laughed. “We are not after your money, Barbie”, the second guy snarled. “We want you.”

“Why?”, Quinn asked, trying to think of a way to retrieve her pepper spray from her purse.

“Because it was you who had brought my bro to jail, remember?”, guy one said. “Life sentence. His name is Alonso Brighton.”

“I have so many cases, I can’t remember all of them”, Quinn explained with a trembling voice. “What do you expect from me? To let a criminal go? To not do my job and let my clients down?”

The guys laughed bitterly. “Exactly, lady.” He looked her up and down, and in her opinion, his gaze lingered way to long on her cut out. Impressed, he whistled. “Well, first, I wanted to teach you a lesson, but you are kind of turning me on now.” He opened the zipper of his jeans and winked at her. “Let’s make a deal: A short session between the two of us and after that, you are free to go.”

A cold shiver was running down Quinn’s spine. “Forget it”, she hissed icily. “I doubt that I could satisfy you if you force me to do it with you.”

The first guy smirked at her cruelly. “Don’t worry, attorney chick, that’s not your problem.” He put off his shirt. “You don’t even have a choice. Come on, let’s get it started.”

She could feel the barrel of the second guy’s gun in her back that pushed her towards the other criminal. “That’s what Alonso would have wanted as well. You have way too much on now. Wait, let me help you with that sexy blouse of yours.”

Quinn gulped. She knew that the possibilities of being able to take on two musclemen were practically zero percent.

So that was it?

She would get raped in a dirty side street?

Exactly when she thought that it was over for her, she caught the glimpse of a Mohawk-haired man standing behind the two criminals. Her eyes widened. Where the hell did he just come from? She swore she had been alone with those guys all the time.

Whatever, she didn’t even care. All she cared about was that he was her last hope.

 _Help me_ , she mouthed desperately, but the man just perplexedly rubbed his eyes.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?”, man number two asked her irritatedly when he followed her gaze, turned around - and didn’t see anything suspicious but dirty containers and the façade of an abandoned building.

Quinn used that situation to her advantage and decided to run.

Unfortunately, criminal one caught her by the wrist and turned her around again. “Nice try, Barbie”, he grinned “Normally, women don’t run away from me if I offer them a round of sex.” He boxed her in the face with so much force Quinn saw stars dancing in front of her face and needed to spit out blood.

…

Puck didn’t know what had gotten into him. He had just been lying in his bed at home, watching _Prison Break_ on his iPad when he heard two men talking.

Frowning, he laid down his device, got up, grabbed his gun and opened the door of his bedroom, thinking that someone broke in.

“NOPD!”, he shouted – and was surprised to see an empty living room in front of him.

With a confused face expression, he told himself that he probably watched too much Netflix lately and wanted to go back to bed.

Suddenly, he felt a weird sensation jolting through his entire body – and found himself standing at a weirdly deserted side street. Well, almost deserted.

A hot blonde in even hotter business clothes was standing in front of two dangerous looking men, silently pleading him to help her.

 _What the fuck?,_ Puck thought to himself. _Am I nuts? I got laid not even twenty-four hours ago, so why do I already picture freakingly hot damsels in distress?_

When the second guy punched her in the face, he suddenly felt the stinging pain in his face as well, he was close to passing out.

_What the actual fuck?_

That was way more realistic that 3D movies. Too realistic for his taste. Because for some reason, he suddenly felt…anxious. Panicked. Freaked out. Definitely not his own emotions.

Puck shook his head when he saw the woman lie on the floor. He couldn’t just watch how those douchebags rose their hands against a woman even though he didn’t know the backstory. He needed to intervene, illusion or not.

As soon as he had thought that sentence, he blinked again – and suddenly realized that he saw everything through the eyes of the woman, not through the eyes of a bystander.

_What the…?_

“That’s all you can do?”, he said to the criminals. Unimpressed, he wiped away the blood from his jaw and his nose ( _her_ nose, but he practically saw everything with her eyes, so…). Puck got up again (daaamn, standing in heels was an entirely new experience).

The guys exchanged surprised glances. “That woman has balls”, guy number one said, kind of impressed, and Puck needed to smile faintly because of that comment. _Truer words have never been spoken_ , _my friend_ , he thought. The criminal rolled up his sleeves and looked at the woman challengingly. “Let’s dance, Barbie.”

Puck wiped away the blood with the back of his (dammit, _her_ ) hand and came closer to the man. Even though that blond chick wasn’t strong, he knew how to knock people down within seconds.

A simple punch in the gut made the first guy gasp for air, he ducked down in time when the criminal number two behind him wanted to grab her.

“Take this, wimp”, Puck said before he kicked the criminal in his groins with her sharp high-heel with all he had.

The guy shrieked like a schoolgirl, fell down and held his crotch, starting crying like a baby.

“That was a big mistake”, guy number two said right behind her with his gun pointed directly to her head.

“You think so, dude?”, Puck answered dryly. Without turning around, he snatched away the gun from him before he could even pull the trigger. With a devious grin, Puck turned around, pointing the gun right at his nutsack.

His eyes widened in shock. “Please”, the criminal whispered, anxiously looking down his friend who was still lying on the ground, holding his best piece and whimpering, afraid that he would lie next to him soon. “Please, please spare my private parts, Ma'am. You don’t know what it would feel like.”

 _You have no idea_ , Puck thought amusedly. With his gun still pointed at the duo, he said calmly: “Leave. Get lost before I change my mind. And never _ever_ come back again” When the two guys didn’t move immediately, he bellowed: “Now!”

Even though he didn’t sound as threatening with this woman’s voice than with his own, the men quickly withdrew.

When Puck blinked, he noticed that he kind of was in his own body again. And that the woman was staring at him.

“What. The hell?”, she whispered, stunned. “Who are you, illusion that knows how to fight?”

Puck stuffed his hands in his pockets in a nonchalant way. “Call me Puck. And what’s your name, attorney chick I just saved?”

The woman threw him a killing glance, but after a while, she smiled faintly. “Quinn. Quinn Fabray. I owe you one, Robin Goodfellow.”

Confused, Puck cocked his head to the side. “How did you just call me? I don’t get it.”

Picking up the purse she had just dropped, Quinn turned on her heel and left the side street. “Read Shakespeare, then you will”, she winked.

Puck just scratched his head when he watched the woman walk away, her hips were swaying seductively.

* * *

Finn was about to watch TV when he suddenly saw the exact brunette from last time dance around in the middle of the living room.

“It’s you again!”, he exclaimed, and the woman yelped and looked up. “How did you even come in?”

Her eyes narrowed when she turned around. “Aren’t you the same pervert that undressed on the streets? What in god’s name are you doing here?”

Confused, Finn stared at her. “What?”

“You…” Her eyes widened and she blinked perplexedly. “Where the heck am I?”

“You are at my home”, Finn explained matter-off-factly. “Okay, technically, it’s my stepbrother’s home, but I crash here as well for the time being. I didn’t plan to go to Seattle, but I just couldn’t-”

“Wait, wait, wait. _Seattle_?” The woman looked downright shocked. “But a couple of seconds ago, I was in New York. Remember, you put off your shirt at the Time Square yesterday evening.”

Finn cocked his head to the side. “The last time I have been to New York was half a year ago. Yesterday evening, I undressed at the bathroom to take a shower.”

“But…but…how?” The woman was speechless. Stunned, she slumped down on the couch and hugged a pillow.

“I am Finn, by the way”, Finn introduced himself as he didn’t know what else to say.

“I am Rachel”, the woman answered. “Dance instructor at Juilliard.”

Finn nodded approvingly. “Respect.” He frowned when he suddenly felt something like…sadness. “But it’s not what you want to do, right? It doesn’t quite make you happy.”

“How could you tell?”, Rachel asked him. He shrugged. “I just could. So what is it you wanted to do?”

Sighing deeply, Rachel started recounting: “I wanted to be a Broadwaystar. I even got into NYADA, a prestigious arts school. But right after I graduated, I fell while I rehearsed for my first role – and I have that nasty dance injury ever since. People didn’t want me for any roles anymore just because I was flawed, I had no chance for a breakthrough.”  
She sighed again, putting her head in her hands. “One of my old teachers got me a job at Juilliard, and that’s why I landed there. It’s really not that bad, I get paid very well and those kids are just adorable, but…”

“You miss the stage, the standing ovations. It’s not really fulfilling you”, Finn ended her sentence, looking at her compassionately. “It’s…”

At that moment, they heard how the door was slammed. “Finn, I’m home!”, Kurt shouted, good-tempered. “And I have great news. Vince just prop…”

He trailed off when he spotted Finn sitting on a couch with a suspicious face expression.

“Look, I can explain”, Finn said quickly. “Does it look like I am talking to myself? Yes. Could it be that I am crazy? Absolutely. But please, don’t judge me.”

“Finn…”

“A woman named Rachel is just sitting next to me, and I am convinced that she is real even though I am the only one that can see her.”

“Finn…”

“Please don’t tell mom and Burt, I don’t want them to think I am crazy. Maybe I am, but you know our parents, they freak out because of every little...”

“Finn, I can see her as well”, Kurt cut him off. “Rachel, right?”

Rachel and Finn stared at him, stunned. “What the hell is going on? What is happening to us?”, Rachel asked anxiously.

All Kurt could do was shrug helplessly. “If only I knew…”

* * *

Tina sighed deeply when she stared down the keyboard of her laptop. For some reason, her head refused to think of a bestseller story. For days now. Things couldn’t go on like that. She needed to try harder. Maybe a change of scene would help her find some inspiration.

So she got up, grabbed her coat and left her apartment to take a walk.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, children were playing on the playground, people were strolling with their pets, some were even eating ice cream, sitting on benches, others were feeding the ducks of the pond nearby.

But not even that scenery could inspire Tina. She groaned. It was just so _frustrating._

“You can say that again.”

Startled, Tina turned around – and was perplexed to see a Latina walk next to her. She could swear that Latina hadn’t been there a couple of seconds ago. “Excuse me, do we know each other?”

The Latina shrugged. “Not directly. But for some reason, I am here now, walking next to you instead of lying in my bed. I mean who is up at that unearthly hour?”

“It’s eight am”, Tina pointed out. “I am an early bird, I always was.”

“It’s eleven am”, the Latina answered her back. “Well, at least here in Miami. I have no idea where I am now.”

Tina frowned. “We are in Portland, Oregon. I have never been to Miami before. When I went to Florida two years ago, I only went to Tampa.” She politely stuck her hand out. “My name is Tina. I am an author.”

“Santana. Stripper”, the Latina said, accepting her hand, purposely ignoring Tina’s surprised face expression. “Do you have an idea what is happening to us?”

Tina shrugged. She was aware that she should be worried that she was apparently talking to someone on the other end of the continent, but she wasn’t. It almost felt like the most normal thing in the world.

She turned to Santana with an interested face expression. “You feel insecure because of something, right?”

Santana flinched. “What the hell? How could you tell? Are you a female, Asian version of Doctor Phil? Yeah, not creepy at all.”

“I could feel it. As if it was my own emotion”, Tina explained calmly, making a mental note to write this down for her next novel later on. “Do you want to talk about it? I won’t judge you; I promise.”

Santana was about to answer with a snarky comment when she realized that it was not such a bad idea, actually. That other chick was thousands of miles away from her, she didn’t have to worry that she would tell anybody she knew.

“There is this special woman”, Santana started talking. “She is the most beautiful, intelligent and charismatic woman I know. And that’s the problem. I am neither of those things.”

“And you don’t feel good enough for her”, Tina reasoned. “You don’t have the courage to talk to her, right?”

Santana nodded. “I really like her, and I don’t want to scare her away. I kind of feel ashamed.”

At that, Tina needed to laugh. “Have you even looked into the mirror once? People would murder for a body like yours. And you don’t seem dumb either. You just need to believe in yourself, the rest will come. Go talk to her, you will never find out how she will react if you don’t dare to do it.”

“Thanks, Asian imagination”, Santana answered, sighing. “You are right. I will try my luck.”

When she blinked, Santana found herself sitting at Starbucks again with her latte in front of her, Tina was gone.

Brittany was seating at her usual place, sipping on her hot chocolate and typing things into her MacBook. Kind of sad that Santana had nothing better to do than to stalk her at a coffeeshop on a Sunday.

Gathering her courage, Santana got up from her chair, brushed back a strand of her dark hair and walked towards the blonde. After having counted to ten in Spanish in her head and taken a deep breath, Santana tipped on Brittany’s shoulder who turned around immediately.

“Hello, Britt”, Santana said, trying to sound casual even though she was nervous as hell. “Do you still remember me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't be mad Blaine didn't show up this time, guys.  
> He will get a bigger role in the next chapters, I promise!
> 
> What do you guys think so far?


	4. Nice Guys Finish Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't own anything but that story.

When Blaine blinked, he saw himself sit at a meeting table with people he had never seen before in his life. He looked around, realizing that he was in a room whose walls were transparent glass panes on the left side, the walls on the right side were covered with photos of famous models wearing exquisite looking clothes.

A middle-aged woman with dirty blond hair was standing in front of the whiteboard, talking and showing them diagrams and sketches of clothes.

“Blaine?”

Blaine blinked again when he heard that voice. Actually, he had been sitting at the university’s coffeeshop with his two friends, he had no idea why he just pictured himself being somewhere else.

“What’s up with you lately?”, Wes asked him worriedly.

“Yeah, you have been acting weird”, David agreed.

“Nothing, nothing”, Blaine waved it off and rubbed his eyes. “I just didn’t get enough sleep I guess.”

“Or is it because you didn’t fully digest the breakup with Hunter yet?”, Wes asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Blaine fervently shook his head. “No, no. Besides, I was the one who broke up after he cheated on me for the fifth time.”

“Unbelievable how you could be so patient with him”, David said, shaking his head as well. “We told you for months that he was an unfaithful asshole, but you wouldn’t listen."

“Sometimes, love makes people blind”, Wes reasoned, sighing deeply when he thought about his own relationship.

Blaine threw him a pitiful glance. “Still didn’t get over Bree?”

Wes grimaced, and David consolingly patted his shoulder.

“Bree was such a slut, just like Hunter”, David spat. “They don’t deserve good guys like you. You were too good for them, but nevertheless, you fell for them.”

“Isn’t there a saying?”, Blaine thought out loud, taking a sip of his Medium Drip. “Opposites attract?”

Wes and David laughed loudly at that. “That’s nonsense, and we all learned it the hard way”, Wes said bitterly and pursed his lips.

“Except for me”, David pointed out, whereupon Blaine and Wes threw him killing glances so that he bowed his head.

Blaine sighed when he checked the time on his phone. “I need to get going, my next classes start in five minutes, and the lecture hall is on the other end of the building.” He got up, gathering his things and stuffing them into the bag.

“But don’t overwork yourself again, okay?”, Wes made him promise. “We don’t want you to end up depressive or something.”

Blaine grimaced. “Don’t worry, I am grown up, I can handle it, Mr. Psychologist that didn’t sleep three days in a row to hand in a perfect essay.”, he winked.

“That was only once!”, Wes protested.

“And what about the time where you begged your lecturer to rewrite your thesis because you got a B+ and not an A?”, David commented, smirking.

“Or the time where you forced another professor to recount the points of your exam because you missed the A just because of 0.21 points?”, Blaine reminded him with a grin on his face.

Wes groaned. “Just because I forgot the equal sign at one of my calculations, that was not fair! And who wants a Psychologist that got bad grades as a student?”

“It’s not like people would want to see your diploma after you graduated from university, Wes”, Blaine pointed out.

David laughed. “I thought you needed to get going?”

“Crap, I totally forgot about it because of Wes’ pettiness.”

He and David high-fived while Wes pouted. “Get lost before I bite your head off, Anderson.”

“As if, Montgomery”. Blaine winked before he walked out of the door. “You are as aggressive as a teddy bear.”

He could see how Wes playfully flipped him off before he left the coffeeshop.

* * *

“Ms. Jones? Mercedes? Are you still here?”

Dr. Schuester snapped his fingers in front of her face when Mercedes dreamily brushed the fur of the poodle in front of her.

“Mercedes!”

Mercedes snapped out of her thoughts and looked up. “Oh, I am so sorry, Dr. Schue, I just…”

“Is it about a man?”, the doctor asked curiously, smiling. “Did you finally find love?”

“Yes and no”, Mercedes answered, also with a smile on her face that just wouldn’t vanish. Indeed, she and Sam had talked over their phones until they realized that they actually could talk to each other without devices.

He had accompanied her home where they both lied on her bed and talked (yes, she was aware that he wasn’t really lying in her bed but on his in Hawaii, but she kind of could feel his presence anyway.)

Whether she was freaked-out about that?

Not in the slightest.

It felt like that ability to communicate with someone that was miles away had always been part of her and she never noticed it before. When she asked Sam whether he felt the same, he agreed with her.

They talked and talked and talked until they got tired and just fell asleep next to each other (kind of.)

“Do I know him?”, Dr. Schuester wanted to know.

“I really doubt that”, Mercedes said evasively, putting down the hairbrush for dogs. “He is not from here.” She really needed to change the topic before he started asking more detailed questions about Sam. “How are your children?”

Dr. Schuester smiled knowingly. “I know what you are trying, but I will play along anyway.” He retrieved the boxes with the syringes and started checking their needles one by one. “Yesterday was Daniel’s first school day, but he already made new friends.”

Daniel was Dr. Schuester’s cute six-year-old son, Mercedes had seen him a couple of times when he and his mother had picked up their father/husband from work.

“That’s what I call a pretty convivial boy. “ She needed to grin. “And how are Molly and Lucas?”

“Lucas learned how to calculate with easy additions and Molly’s speaking abilities improved as well. She said she wanted to become a vet”, Dr. Schuester told her proudly.

“Just like her daddy”, Mercedes laughed. “I am sure she will be a great successor.”

Dr. Schuester rubbed his neck to hide his blush. “She is only three years old; we will find out whether you are right in twenty to thirty years. Whether she has other passions.”

“Would you support her if she didn’t want to step into your footsteps?”, she asked tentatively and couldn’t help but think about what her parents had told her fourteen years ago.

He nodded. “She is my daughter, but it's her life. She has the right to live her life the way she wants to. I would be a little disappointed if she didn’t become a vet, but I would accept her decision.”

Mercedes just nodded thoughtfully.

“Why were you even asking?”, Dr. Schuester asked, interested. “Molly is too young to worry about her future job, isn't she?”

“I was just curious”, Mercedes said quickly, quickly turning to the meds again to sort them after their expiration dates.

No, she didn’t just picture herself with Sam in the future. They were practically strangers. And even if she did, that was just wishful thinking, Sam was a professional surfer on an island far away from her that just happened to be connected to her telepathically, nothing more.

Right?

* * *

“Why the hell did you want to organize a wedding within one week?”, Finn whined for the hundredth time when he, Vincent and Kurt watched the employees of the event management agency prepare the hall for the wedding party. “That’s so on short-notice.”

“Because Vince needs to go to Siberia to model for Mrs. Wright’s new collection”, Kurt explained to Finn for the hundredth time, rolling his eyes. “He will stay in Russia for at least one month and we don’t want to wait that long.”

“That’s one of the disadvantages of marrying a top model”, Vincent sighed. “I have to travel a lot. But hey, it won’t be forever.” He pecked Kurt on the cheek and turned around, glancing down his clipboard. “I will go check whether they have arranged the tables the right way.”

“Am I the only one that finds this insane?”, Finn wondered, and Kurt threw him a killing glance. “I mean you and Vincent only know each other for a couple of months."

“These months were enough for me to decide whether I want to spend the rest of my life with him”, Kurt scoffed. “I _love_ Vincent.”

To be honest, he wasn’t so sure about that anymore. He wasn’t sure whether he was in love with Vince or whether he was in the love with the concept of marrying. But he kept on telling himself that he was only nervous because of the big day.

Finn lifted his hands defensively. “Okay, okay, I got it.”

“You better leave him alone, bud, before he scratches your face”, another voice behind them said amusedly, and the duo turned around.

“Dad!”, Kurt called out when he saw him standing at the doorway. He rushed over to his father to give him a hug.

“Burt? I thought you were in San Fran?”, Finn said, clearly surprised about his visit.

“Do you really think I let you down with planning my son’s wedding?”, Burt grinned. “Even though I was surprised about your short-term wedding. I don’t know you that spontaneous, Kurt.”

At that moment, Rachel decided to turn up, well, only for Finn and Kurt. “What are you doing?”, she asked, sitting down on one of the chairs.

Kurt facepalmed. That was all he needed, a telepathic visit from annoying Rachel.

“You are aware that I can hear your thoughts as well now?” Rachel pouted, kind of fed up. “I am not annoying at all.” Being able to read each other's minds was new, and to be honest, Kurt kind of found it scary how they didn't know each other a couple of days ago and were now able to hear each other's thoughts. But admittedly, it could be practical at times.

“Yes you are!”, Kurt answered her back.

And blushed when both, his dad and Vince, were staring at him as if he had just gotten insane.

“That’s…that’s one of the symptoms of all the stress because of the wedding”, Kurt stuttered, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “Talking to myself.”

At that moment, an Asian woman came walking in, joining Rachel. “Who are you?”, Rachel asked her, cocking an eyebrow.

“My name is Tina, I am from Oregon.”, she introduced herself, sitting down on the chair next to the petite brunette, well, at least she did in their heads. “I already met a Latina called Santana that is from …”

“Mexico?”, Finn guessed, and Burt looked at him as if he just spoke Mandarin.

“You are all racist assholes”, a Latina who just appeared out of nowhere suddenly spoke up, scowling. “I am not from Mexico. Okay, I am, but I live in Florida.”

“There are more of us?”, Rachel asked the women while Finn and Kurt just stared at them.

“Why do they keep on staring at the chairs over there?”, Vincent asked Burt quietly.

His future father-in-law just shrugged.

“I can sense it as well”, Tina commented with a frown. “It’s not only the five of us. We are a larger group I guess.”

“Yeah, not creepy at all”, Santana muttered sarcastically. “And I thought heroine made me see weird things.”

“You took drugs?”, Rachel asked her, hands on her hips. “That’s not okay. If I got it right, we all share our consciousnesses. I don’t want yours to pollute mine with drugs.”

“Shut the fuck up, dwarf”, Santana hissed with gritted teeth. “I only did drugs once when I was twenty-two, so that's four years ago. And I will never do it again. As a stripper, I need a clear head.”

“You are a stripper?!” Rachel gasped for air. “Hell, no! Why can’t you be someone like Barbra Streisand? Or…”

“Be quiet!”, Kurt suddenly shouted, already annoyed about their pointless conversation.

Everyone from the management team plus Vince and his dad turned their heads.

Kurt started blushing. “I…I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean you, of course.”

“Kurt, babe, are you okay?”, Vince asked worriedly.

He nodded shortly. “Yes.” When he blinked, he saw that the three women had disappeared. _Finally_. “Now, I am.”


	5. Wedding Jitters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything but that story.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go see a doctor?”, Frannie, Quinn’s big sister and cohabitant asked her before she walked to work that day.

“Fran, I am fine”, Quinn reassured her when she looked in the mirror to check her makeup. The bruises had been covered up perfectly, people wouldn’t see them anymore.

“But next time, please call me so that I pick you up from work, okay? They could have killed you!”

“Okay, now, you are exaggerating. You were at a party, I didn’t want to disturb you”, Quinn explained tiredly, took her purse and was about to leave. “Don’t worry about me, okay?”

Frannie still looked after her in a worried way when she walked out of the house.

“Hello, there.”

Quinn turned her head, not surprised to see none other than Puck walk next to her. “Hey, Robin.”

“I did some research, and I realized that you were talking about one of Shakespeare’s works.” He grimaced. “I have never been a great fan of English literature. Or any literature.”

“Too bad”, Quinn answered, quickening her pace so that she got rid of him. “I only like guys that are intellectuals.”

“But I am a cop”, Puck pouted, showing her his mark. “Women usually do find that attractive.”

“If you still think that women like scrawny men with no brains, you are wrong”, Quinn said kind of huffishly. “That’s so outdated.”

“Ouch, that hurt” Puck feigned indignation, gasping for air.

“You are such a jerk.” Even though Quinn wanted to keep a straight face, she couldn’t help but smile faintly.

“You already like me, don’t ya?”, Puck asked her teasingly, nudging her. "You have the hots for badass cops like me?"

“Only in your dreams, Robin”, Quinn said with gritted teeth. “If you excuse me, I have something called a job. A lot of paperwork is already awaiting me.” In the meantime, they had arrived in front of the building where Quinn’s office was.

Puck whistled impressedly. “Nice.”

“Get out of my head, Noah”, Quinn ordered, crossing her arms. “I don’t want you at my workplace. Leave.”

“Oh, come on, I got this day off and I am bored. Please?”, Puck pleaded with puppy dog eyes. “What’s the worst I could do? Hit on your sexy coworkers? As far as I know, you are the only one who can see me.”

“I don’t know yet how that whole thing works”, Quinn admitted when she opened the door and entered. “Yesterday when you took over, I was only on the backseat in my own body and couldn’t control anymore what I was doing. What if you hit on my coworkers while you are me?”

Puck frowned. “I don’t think it works this way. And even if it would, I would never do that, okay? I’m a cop, I am one of the good ones. Or I am supposed to be.”

Quinn quirked her eyebrows in disbelief when she entered her office. “Yeah, let’s see about that.”

She was lucky, Dalia, the workmate with whom she shared the office, called in sick, so Quinn (and Puck) had the room to theirselves.

When Quinn sat down at her desk, she threw Puck a stern glance. “Don’t even think about talking, laughing or breathing audibly. I need to concentrate.”

Puck slumped down onto the desk next to a stack of sheets, pouting. “Too bad. I could keep you company while you…” He stared onto the first sheet and its headline with a clueless frown. “What the hell is legal positivism?”

“You can do this, don’t freak out”, Quinn muttered to herself while she stared at her laptop’s display.

“I guess you have been one of those boring nerds at school that turned into hot chicks after college”, Puck commented, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I was a cheerleader”, she deadpanned. “And boring wouldn’t be the right expression. I got pregnant when I was sixteen.”

Puck looked up, staring at her with an open mouth. “No effing way! You, stuck-up, high and mighty attorney chick are a teen mom?”

Quinn shrugged, trying to look annoyed even though she needed to smile. “It was a one-night stand with one of the jocks, his name was Matt. After I told him he was the father, he kind of left the city. I guess he was too ashamed.”, she explained, still feeling bitter about it after all those years. “I have never seen him again.”

“What a douchebag”, Puck growled, eyes narrowed. “You are the coolest chick I know.”

When Quinn looked up, she was surprised that he looked at her without any judgements. Other people around her had been reacting in a disgusted or irritated way, like the majority of the men on her blinddates so far.

“What happened to the baby?”

“I wasn’t ready for taking care of a kid, I was still a kid myself. So after I gave birth to the baby, I gave it up to adoption. I heard that she was adopted by a nice woman only a few weeks later, and I am sure she will be a better mom than I could ever be.”

Quinn realized that she had never talked about that touchy topic with someone before. She needed to blink back a few tears.

“Hey, I’m sure you would have been a great mom”, Puck said in a soft way. “I mean you could take on two bad guys singlehandedly.”

“ _You_ beat them up”, Quinn pointed out, crossing her arms. “I was just standing next to you, doing nothing while you took them down.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you are awesome”, Puck insisted. “You already brought so many douches to jail, more than I did as a cop.”

“How do you…?”

Puck pointed at her head, smirking. “I just found out how to read your mind, attorney chick, don’t ask me how. Point is that you need to start believing in yourself, and if you do, the world will realize what a brilliant star you actually are.”

With a bewildered face expression, Quinn looked at him, tears were glittering in her eyes “That’s the deepest sentence you have said so far. And the nicest.”

For a while, they were just looking at each other, longingly staring at each other's lips.

Puck cleared his throat, feigning nonchalance. “Hey, what do you think? I am Robin Goodfellow.”

Quinn facepalmed. There went that special moment between them. “Are you aware that Robin Goodfellow was one of the bad guys?”

With a wide grin, Puck answered: “Now, I am. I should have known that I should have read more than the first two sentences of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.”

* * *

“Santana? Oh, I can’t believe it! What a surprise!” Brittany got up to hug her. Surprised, Santana hugged her back.

“What have you been doing in the past years?”, Santana asked her after she had sat down next to the blonde.

Her eyes sparkled when she started talking, telling her how the new school for exceptionally gifted kids had done her good and made her get into MIT.

“And now, I am writing my dissertation about a topic of Further Mathematics”, Brittany explained, smiling from ear to ear. “I can tell you the first hundred decimal places of Pi. The lecturers of MIT think I am one of the biggest geniuses since Einstein.”

_Oh, the irony._

“But I thought you wanted to become a dancer one day”, Santana wondered. “Back then in school, you have been among the best of the best.”

“I am still into dancing and I also took dance lessons as a minor at MIT”, Brittany explained with a smile “But math is my real passion.” She leaned forward to Santana, interested. “And what have you been doing in the past years? Did you also go to college?”

When Santana was about to tell her about that she dropped out, she said instead: “Oh, yes, I did. What a great time.”

Dammit, normally, she was proud of what she was doing. But why was she so insecure around Britt all of a sudden? “I also took some math courses as a minor.”

“And what was your major?”, Brittany asked full of interest.

Sheesh, Santana dropped out before she could even choose a major. How embarrassing.

Exactly at that moment, she spotted a black woman sit on their opposite, watching their interaction with interest.

For some reason, Santana got the feeling that only she could see her, and Britt couldn’t. She threw the woman a pleading glance who in turn winked at her.

“My major is veterinary medicine”, Santana suddenly heard herself say, and she was sure that those words weren’t hers. “I am a veterinary physician in training as I still write my doctoral thesis about zoonosis.”

“That’s sounds interesting”, Brittany answered, clearly impressed. “I don’t know much about animals, but I have a cat named Lord Tubbington. He is overweight. Maybe you can have a look at him one day.”

“I would love to”, Santana answered politely even though she doubted it was a good idea.

“So, what was your favorite math subject?”, Brittany asked her, interested.

This time, the woman answered for Santana as well. “Oh, how I love Calculus, especially when I need to calculate the area under a curve. Integration is goals; did you know that the symbol of integration is an elongated S that stands for sum?”

Brittany grinned. “Now, I know. I guess not even geniuses know everything.”

Santana had absolutely no clue about math, let alone calculus.  
She had no idea how she even made it through highschool with her horrible grades in math.

In the next two hours, she (or rather that woman) and Brittany talked about bivariate distributions (???), Fermat’s little theorem (What the hell is a theorem? And little was the biggest understatement of the history), and conic sections (for some reason, Santana needed to think about comics.)

After a while, the blonde got up, throwing Santana an apologetic glance. “I am so sorry, but I need to go now. But I would like to meet you again sometime.” She scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “Here, take this and call me. We need to continue our conversation about Euclidean geometry soon”, she winked.

“Yes, we definitely should”, Santana said faintly.

Brittany leaned down and kissed her softly on her cheek. “See you around, Santana.”

Unable to say anything, she just waved after the blonde who walked away gracefully.

“I was great, wasn’t I?”, the black woman on Santana’s opposite spoke up, kind of smug. “During my studies, I took some courses in further mathematics as well.”

“Who the hell are you?”, Santana asked her.

“I’m Mercedes, a vet from San Diego. Okay, _almost-_ vet. And according to that newspaper over there, we’re are in Miami now, right?”

Santana nodded shortly. “Ermm…thanks you just helped me out, Aretha.”

Mercedes frowned. “My name is not… nevermind. But is it a good idea to lie to her?”

“Technically, I wasn’t lying”, Santana smirked.

“Yes, you were.”, Mercedes insisted. “She needs to like you for who you are, not for who you would like her to be. Who knows, maybe she is cool with you being a stripper with no college diploma. Cause you do have brains, bachelor's degree or not.”

At that, Santana just snorted bitterly “Come on, Aretha. We both know this is a lie. I am a stupid slut. Why should someone as pure and intelligent as Brittany like _me_ of all people?”

When she noticed that people around her were staring because she was allegedly talking to herself, she glared at all of them. “Why are you gaping?”, she barked, and people quickly turned away. “Soliloquizing is a sign of intelligence. Only special people do that”, she added, exchanging knowing glances with Mercedes.

* * *

Time passed, and the day of the wedding came closer and closer – until it was finally the day of the wedding.

“Are you nervous?”, Burt asked his son carefully before he would lead him to the marriage registrar. Kurt couldn’t help but nod. “Marrying isn’t exactly something you do every day, dad”, he pointed out. “Of course, I am nervous.”

He nervously wanted to pick at his tie when Burt put away his hand. “Don’t do that, okay? It took you hours to arrange your outfit and I don’t want you to destroy it.”

Kurt laughed. “Too late, dad. I don’t think I chose the right suit and the color of the tie is just horrendous. It’s…”

“Hey, hey, hey”, Burt cut him off firmly. “Calm down, okay? You love this man; this is supposed to be your day, and nothing is going to destroy it. _Nothing_ , okay?”

Kurt nodded slowly. “Yes, you are right. I shouldn’t freak out; I don’t know what has gotten into me.”

At that moment, Carole entered the room, telling them that the marriage registrar was ready and that they could come out now.

“Well, bud, off we go”, Burt said solemnly and linked arms with his son.

“Yay”, Kurt answered, smiling with anticipation. His dad was right, this was his big day, and nothing would go wrong.

…

With a backflip, Blaine jumped into the indoor pool of a private gym. Said gym belonged to Wes’ family, since he and his parents were on vacation over the weekend and David needed to work, he had it all to himself.

Right now, he was the only one at the pool so he could do whatever he wanted to.

Since his swimming trunks were dirty, he had to wear that embarrassing red and tight swimming slip Cooper had given to him on his last birthday.

Blaine had refused to wear it to that day because seriously, it was way too gay, even for _him_ who wore bowties, gelled back hair and tight pants voluntarily.

Grinning naughtily, Blaine took off that embarrassing, heinous slip, laid it onto the edge of the pool, took a deep breath and submerged.

…

Kurt didn’t even listen to what the marriage registrar had been saying in the past thirty minutes. Why was it so hot in there all of a sudden now that he was standing on Vince’s opposite? Kurt had no idea. He resisted the urge to fan himself.

“Vincent Slatter, do you agree to marrying Kurt Hummel?”

“Oh, I do”, Vincent said fervently.

The way Vincent looked at him now made Kurt even more nervous. As if he loved him more than he deserved - what he probably did.

What had he been thinking when he said yes at the proposal?

“And Kurt Hummel, do you want to marry Vincent Slatter?”

Suddenly, all the people sitting in the audience in front of Kurt vanished, so did Vince. Instead, he saw an attractive man with dark hair emerge from a pool.

And… _holy moly._

He was … gosh, he was... he was ... he was... _naked as a jaybird_.

Like, _stark naked._

_Really, really naked._

Oh dear lord...

Kurt needed to gasp for air. Not only his abs made his mouth go dry. His eyes were glued to another certain body part of that stranger. Even though he tried, he just couldn’t look away.

Dammit, _what had gotten into him_?! He was about to marry the love of his life and stared at _another guy’s thing_ his mind probably just made up. Something needed to be very, very, _very_ wrong with him.

Said man just cocked his eyebrow unimpressedly when he looked back and forth between Kurt and Vince.

“Are you sure you want to marry that guy?”, he asked, crossing his slightly muscular arms and looking at Kurt with his piercing brown-golden eyes. “You don’t even love him.”

Kurt couldn’t explain what happened next, or why it happened. Whether it had been because of his nervousness? Whether all the planning had been too much for him? Whether the dripping wet and, most importantly, _stark naked_ man in front of him overwhelmed him?

He would never know.

All he knew was that he passed out in front of the marriage registrar and his fiancé before he could even give an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm aware that I totally ripped off that scene from the series, but I just found it awesome xD


	6. Still Waters...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't own anything.  
> Nuff said.

The first thing Kurt saw when he came to was the ceiling of his bedroom and the concerned face of his fiancé. His pretty oblivious fiancé.

_Oh, boy._

Here we go.

“Oh my gosh, you are awake” Vince squeezed his hand affectionately. “We were so worried about you, but the doctor told us that your dizzy spell had only been due to a lack of sleep and all the stress.”

 _If only you knew the real reason_ , Kurt just thought bitterly. He was the worst fiancé in the world. Instead, he just smiled weakly.

“I am fine, Vince.”, he reassured his fiancé instead. “I guess it was no good idea to write my vow all night long.”

“Oh, Kurt”, Vincent sighed, caressing his pale cheekbones. “I told you not to worry about it. But hey, no problem, we will just marry as soon as I got back from my business trip to Russia.”

Kurt facepalmed. “Oh, right, the business trip.” He buried his face in his hands. “And I just needed to ruin everything with passing out before I could even say yes. I am such a doofus.”

“You didn’t ruin anything, babe”, Vince assured him, smiling faintly. “I knew from the beginning on that this short-term wedding was a bad idea. We just wait until we are ready, we will plan everything carefully next time. You will get the most perfect wedding you deserve. Because I love you and I want your best.”

Kurt just sighed when he looked into the worried emerald eyes of his fiancé. The words ‘I love you too’ were stuck in his throat.

“Are they?”

He almost yelped when he saw none other than the naked man behind Vince, sitting on his desk and smirking. Okay, now, he had a towel wrapped around his hips, but that picture of him was seared into his brain forever.

“We both know that you don’t requite his love, so stop lying to him.”

Kurt threw him a killing glance, and when a confused Vince turned around, he frowned. “What are you staring at?”

“Oh, I just thought about the designs I still need to sketch. They are on my desk”, Kurt lied quickly.

“Nice try, you still need to learn how to tell lies properly”, the impudent stranger grinned, shaking his head. “As a teacher in training, I would grade you with a D+.”

Kurt really would have loved to call him out for disturbing his time with his fiancé, but Vince was still sitting next to him, so he had no other choice than to bite his tongue and let gel head provoke him. He needed to get rid of Vince before he lost his temper.

“Would you be so nice and bring me some tea? Peppermint” He exaggeratedly fluttered with his eyelashes and smiled at him.

Vince took the bait and quickly got up. “Of course, babe. I will be right back.”

As soon as he had closed the bedroom door behind him, Kurt furiously turned to the unnamed stranger, sitting up and crossing his arms. “What the hell were you thinking?!”

…

When Kurt asked that question, Blaine honestly couldn’t answer it. He usually didn’t act like that. Usually, he was the well-behaved, dapper, kind of nerdy guy next door.

Hell, he was the type of man that always helped those helpless grannies cross a street!

He had no idea what had gotten into him himself when he watched how this good-looking guy was about to marry that other guy he didn’t even love.

Why he knew that Kurt didn’t love that Vince-guy?

He just did, he had no idea, why. Or how that was possible.

Like, _no idea_.

Why did all those weird things keep on happening to him?

Besides, he was a hopeless romantic, he normally didn’t tell people that were about to marry that their partners-to-be weren’t the right ones. He set people up, he didn't destroy relationships, let alone _weddings._

But for some reason, he acted like a self-righteous asshole around Kurt and still did.

Why didn’t he just stop?

He didn't know the reason himself.

 _Holy moly_ , did he take the _Last guys finish last_ quote too seriously after that disastrous relationship with Hunter?

“You don’t fit to each other.”, he said calmly even though that was the opposite of what he wanted to say. Why didn’t he just go home and forget that whole thing? Instead, he was sitting on a stranger’s desk, half-naked and talking about his love life as if he knew what he was talking about.

“Blaine, right?”, Kurt hissed icily.

“How…?”

“To a certain extent, I can hear what you are thinking”, Kurt reminded him gruffly, flaring his nostrils angrily.

Blaine didn’t know why, but for some reason, he found it sexy.

“Stop finding me sexy, _goddammit!”_ , Kurt snapped, his eyes narrowed more and more. "I am engaged."

“Now, you want to forbid me to think? And to feel emotions?” Blaine couldn’t help but laugh. “Did you already listen to yourself? That’s not realistic, we both know it.”

Opening and closing his mouth like a fish, Kurt stared at the dark-haired guy, not quite knowing what to say.

Exactly at that moment, Vincent decided to enter the room with a cup full of hot tea in his hands. “Here’s your tea, darling”, he purred, putting the cup onto his nightstand. He lustfully looked at the spot next to Kurt on his bed.

"Seems like your fiancé is horny", Blaine noticed, smiling amusedly. _Dammit, stop talking now, Anderson, before you say something you will regret soon._ "Is he good in bed?" For that sentence, Blaine would have loved to slap himself hard across the face.

Because that was the final straw. With a fake smile, Kurt said to Vince: “Would you please be so nice and tell Finn to come see me?”

Confused, Vince cocked his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Please, Vince.” Again, Kurt fluttered with his eyelashes and threw his fiancé a pleading glance. “I need to talk to him. It's important.”

“Fine...” Kind of disappointed, Vincent left the room again.

“Congrats, you are not dead”, Finn said thirty seconds later when he entered the room. He looked over to where Kurt was staring – and started smirking. “Oh, hey Blaine.”

“Hi, Finn”, Blaine greeted him, and got up to fist-bump with him (kind of).

“You know each other?”, Kurt asked the duo, aghast.

Finn and Blaine nodded. “We met shortly after you passed out during the wedding”, Finn explained. “I was at the toilet when it happened, too bad, it would have been nice to film it. That guy asks Kurt whether he wants to marry Vince and he just faints!”

They both snorted with laughter, and Kurt rolled his eyes. “That’s not funny! What were you thinking when you got out of the pool nakedly?!”

“Dude, you were naked?”, Finn asked Blaine, his eyes widened.

“I thought I was alone”, Blaine shrugged, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

For a while Finn was silent. But then, he slapped his thigh and laughed louder than before. “Keeps on getting better and better! He faints after having seen your balls!”

“Ha ha, really funny, Finn”, Kurt answered dryly. “This can’t get any worse, can it?”

“Did I just get it right, you fainted because you have seen him naked?”, a blond guy with a mohawk-haired guy in tow who just showed up out of nowhere suddenly spoke up.

“Sam, Puck!” Finn walked over to them to give them a fist-bump as well.

Kurt just gaped at the laughing trio. “And who are you?”

"Puck. Cop from New Orleans."

“My name’s Sam”, Sam answered. “I am from Honolulu.”

“Let me guess, Hula dancer?”

The surfer gasped for air, indignant. "What a cliché!"

“No, he is a surfer, white boy”, a certain black woman who also just showed up, explained. She frowned. “Why are they all laughing?”

Kurt kind of met her during his wedding preparation when he didn’t know what tie to choose. To be honest, she had been a great help, and he had started to like her, that's why he didn’t want her opinion about him to change. “Nothing, Mercedes”, he said quickly. “Just forget it, okay?”

Mercedes looked even more curious now. “Oookay…I will find out sooner or later, it’s not like I cannot read your mind.”

“Only at special occasions”, Kurt corrected her, looking down sheepishly.

“But I know what you are feeling right now”, Mercedes pointed out, grinning. “And you kind of feel ashamed.”

“He fainted during his own wedding because he saw hobbit’s nuts”, Santana who was sitting on the bed of Kurt all of a sudden, explained while she painted her nails. “His mind couldn’t take it.”

“Oh.” Mercedes did everything in her power not to laugh.

“You know I can sense your amusement, right? _Et tu, Mercedes?”_ , Kurt pouted. He sighed resignedly. “Okay, just go on. Laugh as much as you want to.”

So Mercedes joined the laughter of Sam, Puck, Finn and Santana while Kurt just glared at the five of them and threw a smug looking Blaine killing glances.

“I so hate all of you.”

* * *

Rachel carefully tried the dance steps she wanted to show to her students the next lesson. Yes, if she didn’t exaggerate, she could even dance an entire choreography, but she wouldn’t be able to do the dancing routine all the Broadway performers needed to undergo day by day.

It was heart-breaking.

Sighing deeply, she sat down on the floor and buried her face in her hands.

“Must be hard to give up a dream, right?”

When she looked up, she saw a black woman sit next to her on the floor, wearing a lab coat.

“I am Mercedes”, she said before Rachel could even ask. “From San Diego. And as I can see, you are in New York, right?”

Rachel nodded. “My name’s Rachel”, she introduced herself. “And yes, that’s New York. Juilliard, to be specific.”

Mercedes whistled impressedly. “You are a dance instructor?”

The petite brunette nodded. “I wanted to be a Broadwaystar, but thanks to my injury…”

“…you needed to give your dream up.” Mercedes sighed. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Rachel looked at her quizzically. “You also gave your passion up, right?”

“Kind of”, Mercedes admitted. “Since I was little, I wanted to become a singer. One of those great singers that inspired entire generations, like Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston, or Beyoncé. But I changed my mind and became a vet instead.”

“Is it really what you want to do?”, Rachel asked her compassionately.

She shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. Yes, I also like working with animals, but sometimes…sometimes, I wonder whether I have taken the right decision.”

Rachel sighed deeply. “My dads supported me from the beginning on when I told them about my future plans. But I wonder whether I should have done something different instead. If I had been an accountant, I never would have gotten that dance injury.”

“That’s not true, Rachel”, Mercedes answered her back. “If you had been an accountant, you would have asked yourself for the rest of your life whether your decision had been the right one. But if I learned something, then that you always have to live your dreams without asking yourself later on _what if I had done something else_ , without regrets. At least, you can still work on Broadway productions.”

“And you still sing on stage at bars”, Rachel commented. Her eyes lit up when something came to her mind. “It may be too late for me, but you still can make your wish come true. You are still young; you can change your life.”

Mercedes just shook her head, smiling. “I don’t think so. I am happy with what I do, singing in bars is enough for me. I guess dreams can change.”

“Yes, that makes sense. I hope mine will change as well.”

Leaning back and lying down on the floor, Rachel stared at the ceiling, Mercedes followed suit.

After a while, the petite brunette needed to smile. “Thanks for talking to me, I guess I really needed that without knowing it.”

“That’s why I landed in that studio all of a sudden”, Mercedes frowned. “Maybe our subconsciousness was at work.”

“Whether the two of us would have been friends if we had met at high school? Or at college? We had similar dreams…”

Mercedes laughed shortly. “I am sure we would have fought over the soli at glee and hated each other.”

Rachel needed to laugh as well. “That perfectly makes sense.”

* * *

When Quinn quickly rushed to her room before Frannie could baby her again because of her bruises, she sighed tiredly, leaning her head against the door and taking a deep breath once she got rid of her high heels.

“Long day?”, a nice voice next to her asked.

“Hello, Tina”, Quinn said without having turned her head. “What brings you to my place? You know, I just want to be alone now. Maybe put on a relaxing playlist and take a bath, but without company. So would you please leave now?”

Tina threw her a sheepish glance. “I don’t know, how. Maybe you need someone to talk and I landed here.” She leaned forward curiously. “Where does the shoe pinch?”

Quinn shrugged. “I have no idea, there is nothing that is worrying me, okay?”

“Are you sure?”, Tina asked her with a knowing glance. “I know you keep on thinking about a certain man.”

“Okay, okay.” Quinn threw up her hands exasperatedly. “I think I’m about to fall for Puck. Puck of all people! I mean, he usually isn’t my type, not to mention that he is on the other side of this continent!”

Tina’s face lit up. “But that’s great, right? Puck is a cop, and he is hot as hell. Okay, maybe kind of badass, but girls usually do like bad guys, don’t they?”

“Firstly, I am no girl, I am a grown up twenty-six-year-old woman”, Quinn corrected her firmly. “Secondly, I can’t fall in love with someone who is so far away from me. Long distance relationships never end well, that’s a fact. And thirdly, I don’t even know whether he likes me back.”

“There is one way to find out”, Tina suggested giddily, wiggling her eyebrows in a naughty way.

Quinn fervently shook her head. “No. No, I won’t read his mind to find out what he thinks about me. I would never go so low.”

“You don’t need to” Tina started smirking schemingly “But what about me? If I do it and tell you about it, it’s not quite the same.”

The blonde still looked not convinced. “But that feels like cheating at a video game”, she sighed. “And I never cheated in my life before. No, I need to do this the normal, old-school way.”

“Which is?”, Tina wanted to know, making a mental note to write those details down for her next novel. All these happenings were a goldmine for an aspiring author like her.

“Swallow the bitter pill, which means that I just talk to him and ask him whether he likes me back.”

Tina groaned disappointedly. “I feared that you would say that. Now that I have been looking forward to spying on Puckerman’s mind.”

Quinn got up, walked over to her closet and retrieved her fleecy and red bathrobe. “If you excuse me, I have to do what a woman has to do every now and then.”

The author blushed. “Are you…are you talking about…?”

“Oh my gosh, of course not!”, Quinn who had read her mind, exclaimed, facepalming. “I was talking about going down to the living room, grab a big cup of Ben and Jerry’s _Netflix and Chill’d_ and have a movie night with my big sister.” She threw Tina a strange glance who blushed even more, and shook her head in amusement. “So much for _still waters run deep_. It’s always the quiet ones.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment, like or whatever xD


	7. Cheers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, lol.

Santana had never been that nervous before when she walked over to the table of Starbucks where Britt was already sitting, looking at something on her laptop.

When the blonde spotted her, she started smiling widely. “Oh, hey, Santana.”

“Hi, Britt.” The Latina sat down on her opposite, brushing back a strand of her hair and taking a deep breath. _Confession time._ “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you. I wasn’t that honest when I talked to you last time.”

“Are you related to Jennifer Lopez?”, Brittany asked, her eyes widened.

Santana laughed. “No, I’m not. You see, I told you that I took math as a minor at college.” _Now or never._ “The truth is: I never went to college. Okay, I did, but only for a couple of weeks or something, before I dropped out.”

“Why did you lie to me?”, Britt asked her, suddenly looking sad.

It broke Santana’s heart to see her like that. “I…I felt ashamed. You got all those degrees from MIT and are about to receive a freaking PhD, and I am just…a stripper that is happy whenever her tip is higher than three hundred bucks. You are going to revolutionize our world with the smartest people of this planet while I just shake my booty in front of perverts.”

“Santana, look at me”, Brittany ordered when the dark-haired Latina looked down. “You are talking nonsense. I could never not like you, okay? Back then in school when everyone thought I was stupid, you kept on believing in me even though you were the only one. I will never forget what you have done for me. You will always be my friend.”

Santana was speechless. She expected that Brittany would yell at her, leave and refuse to interact with her ever again. But she didn’t expect that reaction. “I…I don’t know what to say”, she stuttered. “I don’t deserve a friend like you, Britt.”

Brittany laughed. “Don’t say that ever again, did you understand?” She smiled at Santana and squeezed her hand softly.

At the body contact, butterflies were starting to move in Santana’s stomach.

“Listen, I got invited to a party of one of my college friends on Friday and I still need a date.” Brittany leaned forwards with a grin. “Are you in the mood?”

Whether a party full of nerds and intellectuals was the right place for people like her? Santana had no idea. But she knew for sure that she wanted to spend more time with that awesome woman on her opposite. “I would love to.”, she answered with a smile on her face as well. “When and where?”

* * *

With a Mojito in front of him, Blaine sat at the bar, frowning and staring down the liquid. He initially wanted to meet with Wes and David to get hammered, but unfortunately, Wes still needed to study for an upcoming test and David’s grandaunt spontaneously came over for a visit.

So here he sat, all alone on a Thursday evening with a cocktail.

“Anderson! What are you doing here all by yourself, my friend?”

“Oh, hi, Puck”, Blaine said without needing to turn to him as he had noticed his voice. “How is it going?”

Puck just groaned frustratedly. “I will never understand women!”

“Let me guess, it’s about Quinn?”, Blaine said in a teasing tone. He didn’t need to read his mind to know about it.

“She is one of the hottest chicks I know, but she also has brains.”, Puck explained. “Until now, I only dated chicks that were as dumb as a sack of hammers. I don’t know how to win her over; she is in an entirely different league. She didn’t even react to my flirting attempts until now.”

“Maybe because she isn’t as superficial as your previous girlfriends”, Blaine reasoned. “I guess she wants more than cheap flirts. You need to try more obviously, make her feel as if she was the most special woman in the world. Quinn has higher standards than all those other women you have dated before. You need to change your tactics.”

Puck nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah… makes sense, I guess. Thanks, man.”

Blaine just waved it off, trying to ignore the other people at the bar that were staring at him in a weird way. They probably were thinking that he talked to himself. But he didn’t care. Since he was not that much of a drinker anyway, he didn’t come to that bar that often and didn’t know anyone.

“And what about you, Anderson? You already won over Porcelain?”, Puck asked teasingly.

“He is engaged, Puck”, Blaine pointed out “And I do respect it after he made it clear a couple of times. Who says that I am even into him?”

“Your head”, Puck answered amusedly. “I ain’t dumb. I know exactly that you keep on thinking about him, day and night.”

Blaine sighed deeply, staring down his beer. “Even if you were right, _what you aren’t_ , just for the record”, he clarified when he noticed Puck’s knowing glance “I never stood a chance anyway. He is happily engaged-”

“-that’s open to dispute, my friend-”, Puck cut him off with a dirty grin, but was ignored.

“-and I just ended one of the worst relationships in my life. I’m not ready for something new. I want to be solo for the time-being, let my broken heart heal and spend more time with my friends.”

“I hope you are talking about me as well”, Puck winked, raising his own glass and taking a big sip. “I never had a gay bro before. You see, I always talk about man stuff with my other bros, but never about deeper things like women.”

Blaine needed to smirk. This Puck guy was something else, and it wasn’t necessarily bad. “Yes, of course, why not?”, he answered, clinking glasses with him and downing his cocktail.

“Cheers! To new bros”, Puck said solemnly after the barkeeper had given another Mojito glass to Blaine.

“To new friends”, Blaine agreed, and they amusedly clinked their glasses for the second time before they downed their beverages.

* * *

Finn was lucky, he found a job at the coffeeshop not even far away from Kurt’s apartment after one of the baristas had quit. Luckily, he already had experience with that kind of job as he needed to work during his time at college to be able to afford his new drums.

The first day of work was kind of relaxing, not that many costumers were in the café on a Tuesday. While he wiped the counter, Finn listened to some music with his wireless earbuds.

That’s why he noticed too late when a young, pretty woman was talking to him.

“Excuse me?”, she yelled a couple of times before Finn looked up and yelped, almost dropping the wet cloth.

He quickly put out the plugs and turned to her, smiling at her apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming.”

“But that’s your job as far as I know, isn’t it?”, the woman answered, kind of annoyed. She impatiently checked her watch. “Can I order now or what?”

Finn bewilderedly hid the cloth, sheepishly rubbing his neck. “Of course. What can I get you?”

“I want a Soy Latte with only one drop of Vanilla syrup. And a raisin cookie. Are they gluten free?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, I have no idea”, he answered, kind of feeling ashamed. “But they are organic and…what’s it called again? Oh, _sustainable._ ”

“I don’t give a damn about sustainable products”, the woman barked, eyes narrowed. “Employees normally know about that.”

 _The costumer’s always right, the costumer’s always right, the costumer’s always right,_ Finn kept thinking to himself. He didn’t want to get fired on day one just because he cursed at one of his first costumers and she complained. If he did, Kurt would look at him in that reproachful way, shake his head disappointedly and call him out again.

Damn, sometimes, Finn missed the times where Kurt had a crush on him before their parents married.

“I am sorry, Miss”, he decided to say in the most remorseful way. “Do you want something else instead?”

She shook her head fervently. “No, just the latte.”

Finn nodded, typing in the order. “And what name shall I write onto the cup?”

The woman rolled her eyes before she answered in an annoyed way: “If it is necessary, just write Harmony. Let’s get this over with, I still have an appointment.”

“Of course”, Finn answered politely and quickly prepared her coffee.

When she took a sip a couple of minutes later, she threw him a killing glance. “I told you to add only one drop of vanilla syrup!”

“I did”, Finn defended himself. “I swear!”

“No, you didn’t!”, Harmony spat, glaring at him angrily. “I am so going to write a bad review on Yelp. Worst service ever!”

Finn paled. If she did, he could say bye-bye to his job.

“Please, don’t!”, he pleaded. “The coffee is on the house, okay? But let’s just forget that whole thing.”

Harmony seemed to think about it for a while. Finally, she sighed overdramatically. “Fine! But next time, I won’t be that forgiving. If there is a next time.”

With that, she turned on her heel and strutted out of the coffeeshop, her high heels were clicking on the floor.

As he was the only one in the café, Finn allowed himself to let out a loud groan.

Not even one hour had passed and he already angered his first costumer.

_Worst first workday ever._

* * *

“How is it to win the monthly surf competitions four times in a row?”, Penny asked proudly, and Sam laughed.

After Sam’s victory, his parents decided to throw a party for him, celebrating with lots of burgers, alcoholic beverages (not for his younger siblings, much to their disdain) and their closest friends.

Sam just shrugged nonchalantly. “Not that special, I guess.”

“Talented AND humble”, his friend grinned, taking another sip of her glass of Whiskey. “You are just aaawesome.” She was starting to slur a bit, and Sam wondered how many drinks she already downed by now.

At that moment, Sam’s dad clapped his hands and everyone in the room went silent when the music was turned off.

“I just wanted to say a couple of words about the man of the hour” Dwight proudly nodded to his eldest son, and Sam blushed a bit. “When Sam told us at the age of fourteen that he wanted to become a professional surfer, Mary and I were skeptical at first.”

Sam remembered their reaction. They were not that thrilled at first once he had declared he wanted to pursue a career as a sportsman back then in highschool.

“But he proved us wrong. At the age of eighteen when he won the championship of all surfers that were younger than twenty years old, we knew that he had the potential. So we started taking his goal more serious and supported him. Until now, we didn’t regret it. After countless victories of championships all over the continent, I can’t tell you how proud I am of my ambitious son that never gave up, even after defeats.” He raised his glass. “Cheers to my son and his bright-looking future!”

“To Sam!”, everyone in the room said in unison, and they all clinked glasses before they took sips of their more or less alcoholic beverages.

Sam needed to blink back tears. He knew that his parents were proud of him, but until now, they had never said it out loud.

When he told Penny about it, she just giggled.

“But they are riiiight”, Penny next to him slurred. “You aaaare a champion. Inside out.” She was swaying on her feet and threatened to tip over any moment.

Sam gently took her glass from her and put it on the table next to them. “Ookay, Penn, I guess that was your last one.” He linked arms with her and turned to his parents. “Mom, dad, I’ll be right back. I will give Penny a lift, she already had enough of drinks.”

“Noooo!”, Penny babbled in a protesting way.

Dwight and Mary exchanged knowing glances.

“Alright, son”, his dad answered with an impish grin. “But don’t take advantage of that poor girl’s state.”

“Dad!” Sam rubbed his neck, embarrassed. “Penny and I, we are just friends, nothing more.”

He was right. When they got together a couple of years ago, it didn’t end very well because they were more like brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend. Fortunately, they had stayed good friends even after they broke up.

But for some reason, his parents still believed that they would become a couple again. They _adored_ Penny, getting her as their daughter-in-law would be a dream come true.

“Alright, then”, Mary winked “But please, drive carefully.”

“Will do, mom”, Sam promised before he dragged a dizzy Penny out of his parents’ living room.

It was hard to get Penny into his car as she wanted to _stay and party_ as she drunkenly explained to him a couple of times; he could already smell the Whiskey in her breath.

When they finally arrived in front of her porch, Sam let out a sigh of relief. “Come on, Penn”, he said softly “Let’s get you to bed.”

Since Penny was even too drunk to unlock her entrance door, Sam did that for her and accompanied her to the bedroom as well. As a precaution, he brought her a bucket in case she needed to puke later on, and a glass of water.

“Thanks, Sam, but I think I don’t need your help with putting on my PJs”, Penny smirked when she slumped down on her bed.

Sam sat down next to her. “Is there something else you need?”

Penny looked him deep in the eyes with a strange face expression. “Maybe one more thing.” With that, she grabbed him by the collar, pulled him closer and started kissing him passionately.

For a split second, Sam requited the kiss. But then, he pulled away, telling himself that they just weren’t meant to be with each other.

And saw Mercedes stand at the doorway to Penny’s room. According to her shocked face expression and her bewilderment he could feel as well now, she had seen everything. Sam was convinced he would never forget that hurt look in her eyes.

Before he got the chance to explain everything to her, Mercedes had turned on her heel and ran out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuun!


	8. Lady Business?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

When Rachel woke up that morning, she felt … pain. Immense stomachache and headache. Groaning, she got up and walked over to her calendar, checking the date.

Yup.

It was that certain time of the month. Groaning again, Rachel took her phone from the nightstand, about to dial the number of Juilliard and call in sick when she froze.

What did she think was she doing? She couldn’t just stay at home because of those little aches and pains, that would be ridiculous.

Besides, suffering in her bed all alone wouldn’t make the pain go away anyway.

After having dressed up, Rachel threw her now dirty PJs into the laundry basket, she would bring them to the laundromat after she got home from work. But first, she would declare war on Aunt Flo so that she could survive the rest of the day with the help of black pants, lemon tea in her thermos flask, and, most importantly, painkillers.

Gosh, sometimes, she _hated_ being a woman. Men never had to deal with those problems. How could that possibly be fair?

…

Puck had no idea why he felt so miserable all of a sudden. Did he get food poisoning after he ate that weirdly looking donut from _Dunkin Donuts_ when he was on his way to the precinct? His head was hurting as if thousands of jackhammers were battering him right to his skull, so was his stomach.

Rubbing his eyes, he took another sip of his coffee and leaned back on his chair of his desk at his office.

“You okay, dude?”, Jake, whose desk was right next to his, asked him, looking kind of concerned. He worriedly put down his pen and turned to his older brother.

“Maybe I’m coming up with the flu or something”, Puck told him, holding his head and fidgeting in his seat. He had no idea what had suddenly gotten into him. Normally, he never got sick that easily, that’s why his younger brother had always envied him.

Jake grinned. “My big bro is getting sick?”, he asked amusedly, crossing his arms. “Awesome!”

For some reason, Puck suddenly needed to sob. “You’re finding that funny?”, he cried. “I am about to suffer agonies!” Some of his workmates were looking over to them, watching that scene with interest. But Puck was so caught up in his misery he didn’t even notice.

“You okay, bro?” Jake cocked his eyebrows, handing him a handkerchief. “Did you do drugs? Are you high?”

“I am _not_ high, for fuck’s sake!”, Puck shouted, eyes narrowed. “I’m in pain. And it hurts so bad!”

"Son, you okay?", Captain Sheldon Beiste who just came walking in, asked Puck worriedly.

"Yes, he is", Jake answered for him, patting his older brother's shoulder. "Don't worry, Captain Beiste."

So Captain Beiste just nodded and crossed the room to talk to one of the other detectives while Puck continued whimpering. Jake threw all the other people in the room apologetic glances. “Probably his quarter life crisis”, he tried to explain, scratching his head.

Shaking their heads, the other people all went back to work, ignoring a sobbing Puck again.

…

Rachel’s eyes narrowed when she checked the dance move of one of her students.

“Carrie, that’s what you call an _Assemblé_? You just looked like a limping cow!” With a scowl, she wrote down her evaluation on her clipboard. “Try again. And next time, don’t even think about messing it up”, she hissed irritatedly.

Carrie, a little girl, quickly went to the back, intimidated.

In a challenging way, Rachel looked in the round. “Who’s next to disappoint me?”

When the children all backed away, Rachel just glared at all of them. “Do you really think you will make it to Broadway this way?? Broadway is like a shark tank; the weakest fish will be the first who will get mauled.”

“We are thirteen years old, Ms. Berry”, one of her students pointed out.

Rachel laughed cruelly, throwing that student a killing glance. “I knew what I wanted to do in life when I was five. Wanting to become a star is no decision, it’s a vocation.”

“I want to be an architect”, one girl spoke up.

“I don’t give a damn!”, Rachel yelled at her, and the girl burst into tears. “You are here because you want to be dancers. Graceful, elegant swans, not clumsy, gawky galoots. Did you understand?”, she bellowed at the rest.

They all nodded anxiously.

“Good”, Rachel said in a dangerous way before she clapped her hands. “Alright, class. Now, _Croisé!”_

“Looks like Ms. Berry is riding the red Cotton Pony again”, one of the girls whispered to her group of friends, and the other girls chuckled.

“What did you just say, Mandy?”, they heard Rachel’s stern voice behind them.

The girls flinched. “Nothing, nothing”, Mandy said quickly, exchanging amused glances with her friends behind their teacher’s back.

With a sigh, Rachel took another sip of her lemon tea and rubbed her head. This was going to be a long, long day.

* * *

“Are you planning on ignoring me forever?”, Sam asked Mercedes with a frown.

Now, she was in her apartment, wiping the floor of her living room energetically, her lips pressed to a thin line. A couple of minutes ago, she had polished her silver tableware to perfection and rearranged her closet.

Without having said a single word to him.

All Sam could feel was rejection. And negative vibes. When he tried to read her mind, it didn’t work. She was probably too pissed to think clearly, and he didn’t resent her that behavior.

Yesterday, he kissed another woman in front of her eyes even though there was obviously something going on between him and Mercedes. But before they could find out, what it was, he needed to ruin everything.

“Truer words have never been spoken, Evans”, Mercedes growled while she poured more soap into her bucket for the cleaning cloth.

“You just read my mind, right?”, Sam teased her, but she just threw him a killing glance. “I thought you wanted to ignore me forever.” He nodded to the bottle of soap in her hands. “If I was you, I would use cleanser for wiping the floors.”

“Do you also want to tell me how do clean the floor?”, Mercedes snapped furiously.

Sam just lifted his hands defensively. “I’m just trying to help.”

She snorted disdainfully. “I can totally pass on your help. Go help your friend Penny instead.”, she hissed, spelling Penny’s name in a derogative way.

“Mercedes, what happened yesterday…”

“-is none of my business anyway”, she cut him off. “We are not a couple, so why should I care?”

Sam furrowed his eyebrows confusedly. Her emotions were telling him another story, but as pissed as she was, he didn’t dare to dig deeper.

He needed to wait until she calmed down because now, he knew he couldn’t carry on a proper conversation.

* * *

Sometimes, Tina just loved her job as an author because it definitely had its perks. Flexible work time was one of the reasons why she did, among others. If she felt like taking a break, she just could get up and do it.

So now, she was on her way to her favorite coffeeshop because she got in the mood for a cappuccino with a lot of cream on top while she had been working on her new novel.

Rubbing her hands in pleasant anticipation, she rushed down the street without paying attention to where she went. That rock on the street seemingly appeared out of nowhere – and so did those strong hands that caught her when she fell.

In the arms of the savior, Tina looked up, looking into the handsome face of an Asian man and smiling shyly. “Th…Thank you. You just saved me, …?”

“I’m Mike”, the handsome stranger introduced himself, requiting her smile in a mysterious way that almost made her drool.

Tina’s breath caught. She never knew that a man could smile that charmingly, all the men she dated before were just…meh. But Mike took her breath away.

Clearing her throat, she got up from her almost-falling pose and straightened out the nonexistent wrinkles of her coat. “My name is Tina”, she said quickly when she realized that she had been staring for way too long.

“Well, nice to meet you, Tina”, Mike winked.

Tina felt her cheeks heat up. Blushing in front of that attractive man was the last thing she needed now. In order to spare herself more embarrassments, she smiled at him in an almost forced way. “How about the two of us go drink some coffee together?”, she offered. “My treat. That’s the very least I could do after you just saved me from falling down.”

Mike started grimacing. “I would love to, but…”

“You are not in the mood? Oh, I totally get it”, Tina ended his sentence, rubbing her neck sheepishly. Why couldn’t the ground just do her a favor and swallow her whole now?

“No, I just wanted to say that I have an important appointment now”, Mike laughed. “But we can catch it up soon.” He retrieved a card from his blazer pocket which he handed her. “Just call me whenever you are in the mood.”

Tina was too stunned to answer him, she feared she would be frozen on the spot forever.

With another wink, Mike turned around. “I hope I will see you soon, Tina.”

Even when he had already turned around the corner and went out of her sight, she kept on smiling goofily. Because she had just gotten the phone number of a hot guy without even having tried too hard and even though she had acted like a total dimwit.

Sometimes, life was just great.

* * *

It was late in the night when Kurt finally called it a day and was on his way to his apartment. Since his boss Mrs. Wright wanted to find some more inspiration, she spontaneously sent them to the back of beyond, a lodge outside of Seattle. He needed to rent a car to get to that place, taking a taxi would have been way too expensive.

So here he was, driving across endless roads of a forest to get back to civilization. He had been one of the last people that had left, Mrs. Wright had eventually sent him at home as well.

“You need to go home, get some sleep, Kurt”, she had told him with a wink. “You are working way too hard. Relaxed fashion designers are better fashion designers, that’s how the saying goes.”

It would take him an eternity to get home. Kurt sighed. At home, he would take a long, hot bath with his most favorite vanilla ice cream bath salt. He hoped that Finn didn’t already use up everything or else, he would let him suffer.

“Oooh, sounds horrible”, someone on the shotgun seat suddenly spoke up and Kurt yelped.

Blaine was sitting next to him now.

Of freaking course.

“Can’t you just leave me alone for once?”, Kurt snapped, kind of annoyed. He gripped his steering wheel tighter so that he didn’t flip out that easily “I already had a long day; you don’t need to make it worse.”

“Since when do I make your days worse?”, Blaine asked amusedly.

Kurt refrained himself from rolling his eyes. “Since you made me faint in front of my fiancé in front of the altar!”

“That’s not correct”, Blaine answered him back. “You are aware that you didn’t marry in a church”, he pointed out with a grin.

“You know _exactly_ how I mean it!”, Kurt exclaimed angrily. “You are a pain in the neck, stop harassing me all the time, goddammit!”

When he said that sentence, Blaine threw him a strange glance.

“What is it now?”, Kurt growled. “Just spit it out, or else, I feel impelled to invade your privacy and read your mind.”

“Do you really want me to say it?”, Blaine asked, just to be sure. “You might not like it.”

“Just say it, goddammit!”

Blaine looked at him quizzically. “You didn’t want it the other way.”

“Just stop beating around the bush, I don’t have time all day”, Kurt snapped irritatedly.

Inhaling theatrically, Blaine confessed: “I didn’t just show up next to you now because I wanted to. You must have summoned me or something.”

“As if”, Kurt answered dryly. “That’s ridiculous, we both know it.”

“I am serious”, Blaine insisted. “One moment, I just sit at my desk of my bedroom, doing homework, the next, I am next to you in your car. I don’t have anything to do with it, I swear.”

Kurt just laughed shortly. “Why would I want to talk to _you_ of all people?”

“You tell me.”

“I mean, you _ruined_ my wedding. You-” At that moment a deer suddenly jumped in front of the car. Kurt yelped, trying to drive around it, but got off the street in the process. The car crashed against a tree and Kurt’s world went black.

…

Blaine felt as if someone just shredded his arm and his skull with a sledgehammer. He screamed, falling of his chair and squirming with pain, wondering what made him feel like that all of a sudden. Did he get sick?

Just at that moment, he noticed that he was in his room again and not in Kurt's car.

“Kurt?”

No answer.

“Kurt!”

For some reason, Blaine got a bad feeling about what had happened. He thought he had heard Kurt yelp before their connection broke off. The pace of his heartbeat quickened.

Did Kurt get into an accident? Did someone attack him? Was it the reason why he felt that pain? Was Kurt injured, or worse, dead?

Blaine’s eyes widened in shock, he felt how he started to breathe faster, close to hyperventilating.

He wouldn't be able to take it if something happened to Kurt even though he barely knew him. But he was in Wisconsin, more than thirty hours away from Kurt.

What shall he do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to all the girls and women out there who are suffering every month. Don't worry, girls, you are not alone xD


	9. Math Puns are the First Sine of Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Finn was about to lock the door of the coffeeshop after the last costumer had (finally) left when he saw a panicked Blaine suddenly rush towards him.

“Help!”, Blaine exclaimed, wheezing as if he just ran a marathon.

“What the hell, dude?” Finn confusedly scratched his head.

“Kurt! He…I think he got into an accident!”, Blaine yelled shrilly.

Finn’s eyes widened in shock.

“Where is he?”, Blaine asked him without waiting for his reaction. “Our connection broke off as if he just fainted.”, he explained, trying to remember everything he had seen in the car.

“His boss sent him to that secluded place”, Finn recalled, frowning when he retrieved his phone. “I can locate his phone; I once installed that tracker app to piss him off.”

“What are you still waiting for?!”, Blaine screeched, too agitated to even find that weird. “We need to find him, it’s a matter of life and death!”

To him, it felt like an eternity when Finn scrolled through his apps, opened the tracker app and entered his password.

“I got it!”, Finn exclaimed triumphantly, showing Blaine his display. “And what now?”

“I will call 911, you make sure you get to the place of the accident as soon as possible”, Blaine ordered, retrieving his own phone. “As long as Kurt didn’t come to, I can’t reach him.”

Finn’s face fell when he saw the accident location on Google Maps. “That’s too far away from here. I will pay a fortune if I take a cab. And where the hell do I get a car from?”

Blaine’s stomach sank. Waiting until the ambulance arrived at that place was out of question.

At that moment, a car halted in front of the coffeeshop and none other than Harmony got out with big shades on her face even though it was almost midnight. “I think I forgot my powder at that place”, she said once she had walked over to Finn (and Blaine.) “Can you unlock the door for me?”

Finn was about to retrieve his keys when Blaine suddenly cleared his throat. “Harmony, right?”, he asked her, his words came out of Finn’s mouth. “I will, but only under one condition…”

“Your stepbrother did _what?”,_ Harmony asked a couple of minutes later when she was driving to the accident place with Finn on the shotgun seat and Blaine on the backseat.

“Get into an accident”, Finn explained quickly, his eyes glued to his phone. “Turn right.”

When Harmony did, the tires of the car were squealing ear-piercingly because of the high speed. Besides, she just continued driving despite the red traffic lights.

“What? That’s an emergency, right?”, Harmony answered when she noticed Finn’s questioning glance. “If someone’s injured, it’s okay to break a few rules.”

_A few rules?_

“I don’t care anyway, I would be in my room in Wisconsin, safe and sound in case you got into an accident”, Blaine shrugged.

“Dude, she wasn’t talking to you”, Finn muttered annoyedly.

“What did you just say?”, Harmony asked, concentrating on overtaking three cars at once.

“Nothing, nothing.”, he answered quickly.

In record time, they arrived at the place Finn’s phone had located, spotting the car that had crashed against the tree immediately, smoke came out of the engine hood.

“Kurt!”, Blaine exclaimed, quickly getting out and rushing over to him.

“Oh dear lord!”, Harmony shouted when she spotted the wreck.

“We need to get him out of there!” Finn got out of the car as well, Harmony followed suit. The car door was weirdly bent, and when Harmony had lifted a part of wood and was about to crash the window, Finn held her back. “Don't! It could cause a chain reaction. The tank could be damaged and can blow up everything around us.”

“And what else shall we do?!”, Blaine asked, terrified. “We can’t let him in there.”

Finn looked over to the window of the passenger seat that was already broken. “First, we turn off the engine”, he reasoned. Carefully, he walked over to the other side, reaching out for the door latch and opening the door from inside.

Once he had turned off the engine, he kneeled down on the shotgun seat and touched Kurt on the shoulder. His head bled and was leaning against the steering wheel, but the airbag seemed to have cushioned the crash. “Kurt, wake up!”, he said insistently.

“Is he still alive?”, Harmony behind Finn asked anxiously.

“Check his pulse!”, Blaine who was as pale as a sheet now, told Finn weakly. “Just take his wrist.”

When Finn had done so, he looked over to Blaine and Harmony who had held their breaths in suspense. “He is still alive”, he stated relievedly.

“Try to wake him up again!”, Blaine almost yelled. “We need to know whether he is fine.”

So Finn shook his shoulder again, this time with more force. “Kurt! Wake up!”, he said, sounding more desperate with each word. “Come on, dude, wake up!”

“Don’t call me dude…”, they suddenly heard Kurt faintly before he slowly opened his eyes.

“Oh my gosh, you are alive!” Finn leaned forward to hug Kurt tightly who groaned quietly. “Finn, you are hurting me”, he complained.

Blaine’s eyes had widened as well. “Thank god”, he sighed relievedly. Harmony was looking less pale now.

“What happened?”, Kurt wanted to know, he had difficulties keeping his eyes open.

“You got into an accident”, Finn explained. “Blaine called me for help, and we got to this place as fast as we could.”

Harmony cocked her eyebrows. “And who’s Blaine?”

Before Finn could think of a convincing lie, they heard the sirens of the ambulance come closer and closer. “Finally!”, he sighed instead. “What the hell took them so long?”

* * *

Santana had no idea what to wear at a party where the majority of the guests were intellectuals, geniuses or at least university graduates.

Finally, she had decided on a [pant suit](https://dbi-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/06/PNTSUIT3_BLACK_CORE_JUNE_20_009-scaled.jpg) her mom had given to her for her grandpa’s funeral with white heels and cherry red lipstick, hoping that she looked more like a serious woman than a promiscuous stripper.

When she got out of the cab, she looked up the façade of Brittany’s friend’s mansion and gasped for air. It almost looked like a castle, the driveway was ample and a lot of expensive cars were already parking in front of it.

“There you are!” Brittany rushed over to her once she had spotted her date. She looked beautiful in her royal blue [cocktail dress](https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-pkla4xn3/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/22270/199102/Walk-Beside-You-Black-Cocktail-Dress-Royal-Blue-Sequined-Bling-Knee-Length-Party-High-Neck-A__76861.1546492431.jpg?c=2?imbypass=on), holding a grey clutch in her hands. She leaned forwards, kissing Santana on both cheeks like a Frenchwoman, and Santana wondered whether all intelligent people were like that.

“That’s so outdated”, Quinn who had suddenly showed up said to her, rolling her eyes. She and Mercedes were standing next to the Latina now, facepalming.

“Yeah, just because we have a diploma, that doesn’t mean that we are uptight”, Mercedes agreed, fist bumping with the blond attorney.

Santana threw them killing glances before she turned to Brittany with a smile. “Shall we, Britt?”

Brittany nodded eagerly. “Off we go!”

With their hands intertwined, Santana and Brittany entered the mansion with Quinn and Mercedes in tow, they met a brunette and a blonde in the anteroom who were both holding champagne glasses in their hands.

“Brittany, great you made it!”, the blonde spoke up, putting down her glass and giving Brittany a short hug, the brunette followed suit.

“Santana, these are Ashley and Josie”, Brittany introduced them to each other.

Brittany’s two other friends politely shook hands with the Latina. “Nice to finally meet you, Britts won’t stop talking about you”, Ashley, the brunette, said. “I double majored in neurobiology and statistics.”

The only thing Santana knew about statistics was the weather chart the weather woman was always using in the news.

“That’s _meteorology_ , Einstein”, Quinn who had obviously read her mind, corrected her, shaking her head and facepalming.

“I guess she will be lost without us” Mercedes amusedly checked her watch. “No problem, I don’t have plans for today anyway.”

Trying to ignore Quinn and Mercedes who were watching the interaction with Brittany’s friends with interest, Santana turned to Josie, the blonde. “I am a Hydrologist”, Josie told her, her eyes were literally sparkling with passion. “But I’m also into math so I majored in applied Mathematics as well.”

Santana had no idea what hydrology even was.

“Hydro is the Greek word for water so it must be the scientific study of water cycles”, Quinn reasoned.

Mercedes nodded in agreement.

So Santana cleared her throat, feigning interest. “That sounds…exciting”, she said, playing with her dark hair.

“And what do you do?”, Josie asked her.

Before Santana could answer, Brittany announced proudly: “She’s a stripper.”

Quinn and Mercedes facepalmed.

Ashley’s and Josie’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s…that’s something else”, Josie eventually spoke up.

“But San is super smart, smarter than you might think”, Brittany added, grinning. “We talked about further mathematics for over an hour.”

“You mean _we_ talked about it”, Mercedes corrected her with a perfidious smirk, and when Quinn threw her a confused glance, she answered with a shrug: “Long story…”

Josie and Ashley threw Brittany skeptical glances. “Really?”

“Just because I am a stripper, that doesn’t mean I am as dumb as a sack of hammers!”, Santana hissed with narrowed eyes.

“Is that so?”, Ashley asked her in a challenging way.

Crap, now, she needed to think of something smart.

“How about a math pun?”, Quinn, suggested, and Santana threw her a confused glance, wondering what she had in mind.

Mercedes excitedly clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s a great idea. Impress them with a small quote without even losing your credibility.”

Whether that was a good idea?

Before Santana could even answer them back, Quinn had already taken over. “Why shouldn’t you let advanced math intimidate you?”

Brittany, Josie and Ashley exchanged confused glances.

“Because it’s as easy as pi.”

The mathematicians burst into laughter. “Oh, that was a good one!”, Josie chuckled.

Santana who kind of had an out of body experience now that Quinn was her, threw Mercedes a confused glance. “Am I the only one who doesn’t get it?”

Mercedes who also needed to smile, cocked her head to the side. “She was talking about pi”, she tried to explain.

“Still don’t get it”, Santana shrugged.

“Forget it”, Mercedes waved it off.

A couple of minutes later, Brittany, Josie, Ashley, Mercedes and Quinn in Santana’s body seemed to have the time of their lives while Santana was just standing next to them, disinterested and feeling like the third wheel.

“Oh, that’s another good one: A square root and minus one meet on the streets”, Quinn just told them, taking another sip of her champagne. “Minus one asks the square root: ‘Why can’t we be together?’ The square root answers: ‘It’s complex’”

The laughter of the quintet was almost ear piercing.

Quinn grabbed a napkin from one of the tables next to them and her lipstick from her purse, scribbling something:

√-1 8 ∑ π

“It was delicious”, Quinn added.

This time, tears of laughter were running down the women’s cheeks when they burst into laughter once again.

“What is that supposed to mean?”, Santana whined. “Is this some random sign language I don’t know?”

When they stopped laughing, Josie looked at the Latina (or rather at Quinn) in an impressed way. “I need to admit, I underestimated you, Santana.”

“You are full of wit”, Ashley agreed. “I guess you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

“Thanks”, Santana said with a grin, feeling how she slowly took over her own body again. “And if you need flirting advice, I’m the right woman as well, you know.”

She was surprised when Ashley and Josie burst into laughter again.

“What is it?”

“Oh, don’t you know?”, Josie asked her in an amused way, looking over to Britt who had went unusually silent. “At MIT, Brittany was a notorious whore.”

Mercedes and Quinn gasped for air because of the blonde’s word choice.

“Yes, by now, she already humped every lecturer, student, academic employee and even the janitor”, Ashley said matter-off-factly. “Even the president and the chancellor, and she is straight. It's safe to say that she banged her way across the entire institute.”

Santana just gaped at her. “Britt…is that true?”

“I wanted you to like me, to think I am a respectable scientist”, Brittany admitted sheepishly. “I wanted to prove you that I am not the stupid thirteen-year-old I used to be. I wanted you to take me serious.”

For a while, Santana just looked at Brittany with an unreadable face expression, not saying anything. But then, she gripped the blonde’s arm, turning to Josie and Ashley. “If you would excuse me, Brittany and I need to talk in private.”

“Of course”, Ashley said politely, exchanging knowing glances with her friend.

Santana dragged Brittany away from the duo, leading her to the bathroom, the only place that wasn’t full of people.

After she had closed the door behind them, Brittany looked at her, kind of anxious. “Are you mad?”

“Britt, you were the one you already liked me even though I am not in your league.”, Santana said with her arms crossed. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because I don’t want to lose what we have”, Brittany explained, looking down in a bashful way. “Back then, you have been an important part of my life, and it didn’t change after all those years we have met again.” She didn’t dare to look into the Latina’s eyes. “If you don’t want to meet with me again, I can understand.”

Santana pulled her closer by the waist with a smirk. “Well, well, who would have thought that something innocent as you are actually savage?” She lifted up the blonde’s chin lovingly. “If anything, you have just gotten hotter, Britt.” With that, she crashed her lips onto Britt’s who seemed to be surprised by the turn of events.

The make out session got wilder and more passionate within seconds.

Kind of feeling out of place, Mercedes and Quinn covered their eyes when Brittany kneeled down and undid the buttons of Santana’s pants.

“I guess we better should get lost now”, Mercedes whispered to the blond attorney when it started getting more serious.

Quinn grimaced. “Yes, I am not in the mood for gay porn.” She and Mercedes quickly turned away when they heard a moan. “Are you in the mood for _Legally Blonde?_ We can watch it on my bed with some Ben and Jerry's.”

Mercedes shrugged. “Yeah, why not? Way better than that” She vaguely pointed at Brittany and Santana, not keen on finding out where that moan just came from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my adorkable friend Marla who helped me with the math puns =D
> 
> Happy New Year, fellas!


	10. The Council of Elders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

When the doctor at the hospital told them that Kurt was fine and would fully recover, Blaine had a feeling that he was able to breathe properly again. It had felt like an eternity when they all drove to the hospital in Harmony’s car and when the doctors checked on Kurt.

“He only has a mild concussion and a broken arm, but that’s all”, the doctor just explained to them.

Finn sighed a breath of relief.

“Thank god”, Harmony said quietly.

“Can we see him?”, Blaine asked immediately at Finn’s place.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, but not for long; he needs to rest.”

Harmony checked her watch, throwing Finn an apologetic glance. “It’s getting late, I got to go”, she told him, grimacing.

“Yeah, of course.” Finn rubbed his neck, throwing her a grateful glance and smiling at her softly. “Thank you for what you have done for us even though you don’t even know me.”

She waved it off. “Hey, that was the very least I could do for you after I acted like a total bitch yesterday. I had an important meeting and I was nervous, but it was no excuse for letting that cute barista suffer.”

“It’s all snow under the bridge now”, Finn reassured her. “Ermm…I mean _water_ , of course. It’s all water under the bridge now”, he quickly corrected himself after Blaine had whispered the right saying into his ear. “ _Wait_ …did you just call me cute?”

Harmony winked at him when she put a card into the pocket of his sweatjacket, making the ‘call me’ sign with her right hand. “Good night, Finn”, she whispered kind of flirtatiously before she left the hospital.

“You like her, don’t you?”, Blaine asked him with a knowing glance once she went out of their sight.

Finn flinched. “We just met, how can I already like her?”, he answered, nervous for some reason.

Before Blaine could answer him back, Finn quickly rushed over to the room where Kurt was and opened the door.

 _Another time_ , Blaine thought amusedly _. I will find out one way or another anyway._

Kurt was not awake. His head was bandaged, his left arm had been put in a cast. Blaine couldn’t help but think that he looked pale, paler than usually.

“That’s not true, that’s only because of the light”, someone behind him complained, and Blaine jumped a few inches in the air, slowly turning around.

None other than Kurt was standing behind him – kind of.

“Dude, you scared the crap out of us!”, Finn complained, rubbing his forehead and irritatedly looking back between the real Kurt and the one who was standing next to them. “We thought you were sleeping.”

“No, I am not”, Kurt negated, shaking his head. “I’m just too weak to interact with you the normal way. Those painkillers are stronger than I thought.”

His eyelids and limbs felt as heavy as lead and talking would take him a lot of force as well. But as long as he wasn’t asleep, he could communicate with Finn and Blaine in their heads.

He turned to Blaine. “I don’t know how to thank you”, he said “You were the one who found me, right?”

Blaine rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Not exactly. Actually, it was Finn who tracked you with his tracking app…”

“But you told me about the accident in the first place”, Finn reminded him. “You should take all the credit for having saved him.”

“Oh, that was nothing”, Blaine waved it off, smiling faintly. “You all would have done the same at my place.”

Kurt started yawning loudly. “I guess I will try to get some sleep now”, he told Finn and Blaine. Keeping up that mental link was more exhausting than he thought. He needed to rest, not only physically, but also mentally. His brain needed to recover as well.

“Okay, dude”, Finn nodded, retrieving his phone. “I will text mom and Burt first. They are probably…”

Before he could even unlock his display, Kurt had rushed over to him and snatched the phone out of his hands.

“Dude!”, Finn exclaimed. “What the hell?”

“You can’t tell them about it!”, Kurt protested, laying down the device on the nightstand. “Dad would flip out. I don’t want them to worry because of nothing. I am fine.”

“Says the one who can’t talk to us the normal way because he is too weakened”, Blaine muttered.

“Because I am tired”, Kurt retorted stubbornly. “I just need to rest, easy as that.” He threw Finn one last pleading glance. “Please, Finn, keep that little incident-“

“Accident!”, Finn corrected him with a frown.

“ _Accident_ to yourself. At least until I checked out of hospital”, Kurt ended his sentence. “Please?”

Finn groaned loudly. “Fine!”, he sighed. “But next time, I will tell them immediately, okay?”

“Deal”, Kurt agreed, yawning again. “If you would excuse me, I need to get some sleep.”

After he had said that sentence, he walked over to his bed and lied down, stretching his arms and legs and curling up next to his real self and closing his eyes. “Good night.”

Finn and Blaine exchanged weird glances. “Is it just me or is it weird to see him twice?”, Blaine finally spoke up.

When Finn blinked, the second Kurt was gone. “Nope, just you”, he joked with a grin.

* * *

“It was perfect, Arts”, Tina gushed when the two of them were sitting on her couch (okay, she was) and talking about her date with her new acquaintance Mike. “He was a true gentleman, he even pulled back the chair for me when I wanted to sit down.”

“Great”, Artie grumbled, not as ecstatic about it as Tina.

“Did you know that he works as a professional dancer?”, Tina asked him excitedly. “He was one of the background dancers at Justin’s tour.”

“Which Justin?”, her friend asked her with a frown.

Tina, completely oblivious to his lack of interest, answered with a beam: “Bieber AND Timberlake. He knows both of them personally. And a lot of other celebs as well.”

“Wow, who would have thought?”, Artie answered monotonously, crossing his arms with a scowl. “You were never that enthusiastic about my job”, he pointed out sullenly. “IT is not so interesting to you, I guess.”

“Mike and I, we will meet for a second date next week.” Tina’s eyes were literally sparkling. “He wants to take me out to an exquisite restaurant.” Excited, she bounced up and down on her seat.

Artie just let out an annoyed groan.

Perplexed, Tina cocked her head to the side. “Why do I get the feeling that you are not as thrilled about this news as I am?” For as long as she could remember, she and Artie had been best friends, and it didn’t change when they grew up. That’s why she couldn’t understand why he didn’t share her excitement right now.

“Don’t you see?”, Rachel who sat next to her on the couch all of a sudden, asked her with amusement. “He _likes_ you. He’s jealous.”

“That’s nonsense”, Tina answered her back with a frown.

“What’s nonsense?”, Artie asked her confusedly.

“That you are jealous of Mike”, she explained with cocked eyebrows. “You are my best friend since we were toddlers, Artie, and no one could ever replace you.”

Rachel burst into laughter. “He likes you _more_ than that, silly”, she chuckled “That’s why he doesn’t approve of the dates with that Mike guy.”

“Shut up, Rachel”, Tina hissed with red cheeks.

Artie cocked his head to the side. “Tina… is it possible that you took illegal substances that make you see things?”

 _This can’t be happening_ , Tina annoyedly thought to herself. Her best friend who probably crushed on her was convinced that she was high!

“I don’t hallucinate, for crying out loud!”, she snapped. Taking a deep breath, she took Artie’s hands and looked him deep in the eyes. “Listen, Arts, do you trust me? And can I trust you?”

“Ermmm…yes?” He blinked at her in confusion. “What’s wrong? Are you sick or something? Will you die?”

“We are all going to die sooner or later”, Rachel pointed out, crossing her arms.

“Just be quiet, Rachel!”, Tina snarled, and Artie tentatively looked over to the spot she glared at. The _empty_ spot.

“What the hell? Do you have imaginary friends?”

Tina shook her head. “No, I don’t. I can…talk to certain people that are all over the states. With my head.”

Artie’s eyes widened. “No way! You have telepathic powers?” His face lit up. “That’s awesome!”

“Wait…he believes you?”, Rachel asked, surprised about how things turned out. “He doesn’t declare you legally insane or wants you to go see a doctor?”

“He is my best friend since we were toddlers, Rachel”, Tina explained to her slowly. “He knows me better than any other person. He knows that I would never lie to him.”

Artie who had heard these words, blushed slightly and looked down. “Thanks, T. Happy to hear that.” He turned to the spot where Rachel sat and smiled at her even though he couldn’t see her. “Rachel, right? I’m Artie, Tina’s best friend. Nice to meet you”, he introduced himself with a goofy grin.

Rachel just cocked her eyebrows.

“She said it was nice to meet you too”, Tina quickly answered for her, and Rachel threw her a weird glance.

Her friend smiled from ear to ear. “So…how does that whole thing work? This is scientific gold for a scientist like me.”

“ _Computer_ scientist”, Tina corrected him “And we don’t know it ourselves. Suddenly, we were just able to communicate with each other without even having met once.”

“If that’s the case, you are going to need a genius like me”, he answered giddily. “I will help you with all that, do some research and help you figure it out. This is going to be amazing!”

Tina’s eyes lit up. “You would do that for us?”

“Nice of your nerdy friend”, Rachel agreed.

He nodded with anticipation. “Of course. After all, it doesn’t happen every day that your best friend gets powers, right?”

Overwhelmed by gratefulness, Tina leaned over to give him a tight hug. “Thanks, Artie. You are the best, are you aware of that?”

“I sure am”, Artie answered in a smug way “You don’t need to say it all the…Tina?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, surprised she didn’t react. Instead, she just stared at the spot in front of her without blinking, her eyes had turned glassy.

“Tina!” Even when he shook her shoulder, she didn’t react. Artie’s eyes widened in shock.

* * *

Quinn rubbed her head when she came to. One moment, she had been jogging at the park near her home, the next, she just passed out for no apparent reason. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

When she looked around, she noticed that she was in a hall of sorts, but she was not alone.

“What the hell?”, Mercedes who also just came to, asked. “How is that possible?”

They were not the only ones. Rachel, Tina, Finn, Puck, Sam, Kurt (his left arm was in a cast) and Blaine also were sitting on the floor and perplexedly looking around.

“Where are we?”, Blaine asked in the round.

“Or more importantly: Is it an illusion our heads made up?”, Tina wondered.

“Welcome”, another voice suddenly spoke up and the group of ten turned around, startled.

Five people, two men and three women, in cloaks and masks on their faces were standing in front of them, smiling warmly.

“Who the hell are you?”, Puck asked, wanting to reach out for his gun in his holster. “I’m a cop, so you better beware.”

“We are not your enemies”, the first woman explained kindly.

“We were the one who brought you to this place to talk to you”, one of the men added.

“You didn’t answer Puck’s question”, Kurt said, still looking skeptical. “Who are you?”

“Call us the Council of Elders”, the second woman answered.

Rachel crossed her arms. “Council of what?”

“The council of people like us”, the second man explained. “People with telepathic bonds. There is even a name for that: Sensates.”

“Sensates?”, Finn repeated. “There are more people like us?”

The third woman nodded. “Oh, yes, there are. Humans like us whose brains are more sophisticated than an average person’s brain. Humans who have a psychic connection.”

“Why are you called the Council of Elders?”, Mercedes asked them with a cocked eyebrow. “You don’t look as old to me.”

They were surprised when all the five members laughed.

“We are about one hundred years old”, the second woman explained patiently “Sensates do age deceleratedly.”

“So I’m going to stay twenty-six forever? Like a vampire?”, Kurt asked, aghast.

“Well, at least we won’t age in the next twenty years, that’s great”, Sam chimed, but Kurt wasn’t listening.

“How am I going to explain that to Vince? Or my children? They are going to look older than me!”

Puck threw him a weird glance. “You are already thinking about founding a family with annoying and thankless rugrats? Life is too short for that.”

“Not for us, it seems”, Blaine muttered under his breath.

Quinn crossed her arms and turned to the cop. “Do you want to tell me you don’t want to be a father one day?”

“I never said _that_ ”, Puck said quickly “But it doesn’t have to be _now_.”

“Did you ever think about your future wife?”, Quinn retorted, her eyes narrowed. “Her biological clock is ticking. Even if it wouldn’t, who wants to be a fifty-year-old mom?”

“Says the one who got pregnant when she was sixteen…”, Rachel murmured.

The blonde threw her a killing glance. “It was an accident, for god’s sake!”

“Yes, of course”, the brunette answered sarcastically.

The first woman cleared her throat loudly. “I think we’re slowly getting off talk. The reason why we wanted to talk to you was to ask you how you were.”

“Apart from the fact that nine other people I don’t even know that much permanently invade my privacy by reading my mind-”

“Reading your what now?”, the second man cut off Mercedes.

“We can read each other’s minds”, Tina explained. “At the beginning, we could only hear snippets of what the others thought and only every now and then, but now, we can do it whenever we want to.”

The five elder Sensates exchanged worried glances.

“Is there a problem?”, Finn who didn’t miss that reaction, asked them.

“Usually, Sensates are not able to read minds of each other”, the second woman explained.

“The probability Sensates are able to do so is one in one thousand”, woman number three added.

Kurt groaned frustratedly. “ _Great_ , so even among freaks, we are freaks?”

“And is there a reason why we are the ones who are…different?”, Rachel asked tentatively.

The five council members shrugged. “We honestly have no idea as well.”

“But we will find out, we promise”, the first man spoke up.

The third woman rolled up her sleeve and checked her watch. “Our time together is up, I’m afraid.”, she said apologetically.

“But we still have questions!”, Tina protested, feeling how her spirit slowly returned to her body.

“Yeah, Tina is right”, Finn agreed. “Why are we the ones who are linked to each other? Is there a reason?”

“This is a story for another time, son”, the second man said patiently. “But not for now.”

“You can’t just-” Before Quinn could end her sentence, she reopened her eyes – and realized that she was standing in the park again. Perplexed, she shook her head before she started jogging towards her apartment complex.

What the hell was that? 

* * *

As soon as the spirits of the ten young Sensates had been sent back to their bodies, the five council members put down their masks.

“Millenials”, Holly Holliday said, shaking her head. “They are so impulsive and loud. I’m getting a headache.”

“Yeah, tell me about it”, the second woman, April Rhodes, groaned, putting down her cloak. A tight black dress came into view. Sighing relievedly, she bent down to retrieve a bottle of Scotch from her purse.

“Is that necessary, April?”, Dr. Schuester, leader of the council, asked her annoyedly.

April just shrugged and took another sip of her bottle.

“Why did we want to keep our identities a secret again?”, Isabelle Wright asked Dr. Schuester. “I know Kurt. He’s a good boy and I could mentor him.”

“Yes”, Sheldon Beiste agreed. “I’m the captain of the Police Department where Puck works. He is something like a son to me.”

Dr. Schuester shook his head fervently. “We already had that topic. The time isn’t ripe yet. We still need to wait, please just trust me. Of course, it’s okay to help them out every now and then without them noticing, but that’s all.”

The other four members nodded, albeit reluctantly.


	11. (I said A) Bang Bang Bangity Bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you noticed, the headline is a reference to HIMYM, you will see, why xD  
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Santana was sipping on her latte at Starbucks when someone hugged her from behind. With a smile, the Latina turned around. “Britt! You scared me”, she taunted the blonde, but was laughing anyway. "What are you even doing here?"

“I wanted to see you, easy as that”, Brittany answered matter-off-factly. Her hand slipped under the Latina’s pants and Santana inhaled audibly. “Britt”, she said hoarsely “Is this a good idea?”

“The ladies’ room is empty now”, Brittany whispered into her ear.

Santana’s eyes lit up.

…

“Does anyone have something to add?”, his boss asked in the round during the meeting.

Kurt cleared his throat. “Actually, I do. I don’t think this dress should be rushed.”, he admitted.

His boss, Isabelle Wright, looked at the sketch of her PowerPoint presentation with cocked eyebrows. “And why not?”

“This is supposed to be a dress targeted at a younger target group. I doubt that teenage girls would want to wear good girls’ clothes.”

“You think so?”, Madelyn, his co-worker, a redhead with chic metal rimmed glasses, asked with a frown. “My niece is sixteen years old and she doesn’t mind wearing bubble gum pink skirts and rainbow-colored crop tops. The trend goes towards innocent looks, so called kawaii outfits.”

“Ka- what now?”, Kurt asked confusedly.

“Kawaii is Japanese for cute, lovely”, Tabetha, a black woman with a light brown afro explained. “Everything that is lovely such as Hello Kitty or pink rabbits, the list goes on and on.”

Kurt gnawed on his pen. “And what if we change the dress entirely? Teens want cute things? They get cute thi- _OHMYGOD!_ ”

His eyes widened in shock when he saw two women in front of him, one has kneeled down and was about to suck the –

Yelping, Kurt covered his eyes. “ _Gross!_ Make it stop! Please, _make it stop!”_ , he screeched. He was probably scarred for life.

All the others at the meeting table were looking at him, bewildered.

“Kurt? What do you mean?”, Madelyn finally dared to ask. “We can’t see anything disturbing.”

When Kurt slowly uncovered his eyes, all he could see was the meeting table and the aghast face expressions of his coworkers. Ms. Wright was the only one who looked kind of…amused? But he was too ashamed to care.

Blushing furiously, Kurt rubbed his neck. “Oh, erm…I think I just saw a…a…a giant hairy mosquito on the desk and I…kind of flipped out…”

“You flipped out because of a …mosquito?”, Rose, a blond woman on his opposite asked him incredulously.

Kurt got up. “Erm…yes. How I hate them, they are so gross”, he explained while he backed away. “If you would excuse me, I need to…erm…you know…” Since he didn’t know what to say, he just helplessly pointed out of the door, got up and quickly left.

When he was out of sight, he started scowling at a certain Latina how was busy doing not PG rated things with a blonde at a toilet. “Are you out of your _goddamn_ minds?!”

…

Santana yelped when she heard Lady Lips’ words and quickly got up.

“What the hell, Hummel?”, she snarled. “Have you ever heard of privacy?”

“Do you really think I watched your small performance _voluntarily?”_ , Kurt answered sharply. “You know exactly I’m gay. I’m not interested in watching you get at it. _Yuck!”_ He shuddered in disgust.

Brittany just blinked confusedly. “Who are you talking to?”, she asked the Latina who motioned her to be silent.

“I had a meeting, and all of a sudden, you start this…this…this…”

“Just say it, Lady”, Santana said amusedly, putting her hands on her hips. “Just say it out loud, we are all grown up people.” She lovingly put her hand around Brittany’s waist and pulled her closer. “Britts and I, we had oral sex.”

Frustrated, Kurt groaned and looked up the ceiling. “Can you do this…elsewhere? _Beyond my head_ , you can do whatever you want, but whenever I can see you, _no sex_ , are we clear?”

Santana rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay, Kurtie Kurt. I get it, your baby-like mind cannot take on so much sexiness.” She playfully slapped Brittany on her butt who started giggling.

Again, Kurt groaned and huffishly left the bathroom, still looking distraught.

“Soo…who’s Kurt? Or Lady Lips or whatever his name is? You know, I also have imaginary friends, but I didn't know you had some, too”, Brittany commented when they were alone again.

Santana looked at her, suddenly serious. She and Britt knew each other since they were kids, she knew she could trust her with that secret. “Do you have time for the entire story?”

The blonde’s eyes widened. “There is an entire story?”

* * *

Finn and Harmony were taking a walk at the park next to the coffeeshop where Finn was working, hands intertwined.

“Favorite band?” Harmony snorted about his question. “You serious, Hudson? You want to know my _favorite band?”_

Finn nodded. “Yeah, why not? I want to know everything about you.” He started blushing after having said that sentence. “Dammit, that sounded more wrong than it is.”

Harmony needed to laugh. “I know how you meant it, silly. Boys, they are all the same.” She shook her head in amusement before she answered his question. “I always liked Fifth Harmony, you know, before they went on indefinite hiatus, like One Direction.”

“We will never see them again”, Finn agreed. “They just don’t have the guts to admit that they won’t come back anymore.”

Suddenly, Harmony stopped in her tracks, looking directly into Finn’s eyes. “Can I be bold, Finn?”

“Ermm…yes?” What if Harmony hadn’t liked all of their dates and wanted to tell him so now? He needed to gulp and brace himself for the worst.

“I think I like you. A lot.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Suddenly, Harmony’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Oh? _Oh?_ Normally, I’m not that kind of person that admits she likes someone, and you just say _oh_?”

“I didn’t mean it li…”

“I tell you how I feel, and you just brushed it off as if it was nothing! But I got the message, you don’t like me back, easy as tha-”

She was cut off by Finn grabbing her and kissing her. At first, she seemed to be surprised, but after a couple of seconds, she kissed him back just as passionately.

“The truth is that I like you too”, Finn admitted breathlessly when they pulled away to breathe. “I just didn’t know how to tell you. I mean I had a lot of dates by now, but none of them were thrilling.

Until I met you. I don’t know why, or how, but it made click.”

“Right after I humiliated you and called you a bad barista?”, Harmony asked, and Finn laughed.

“No, at our dates when I got to know you. You are the right one, I just know it.”

Harmony’s eyes shimmered. “I like you too, my clumsy barista”, she laughed when she pulled him closer by the waist to kiss him.

Suddenly, Finn needed to flinch and irritatedly pulled away. What the hell was that? Why did he feel... upset?

"Finn?", Harmony asked him and he looked up. "Are you okay?"

"Y...Yes", he stammered, brushing off what he had just felt. "I have never felt better before. So... where were we?" He leaned in again to kiss her, and Harmony laughed into his kiss.

* * *

Blaine was busy grading the tests of his students and sipping at his Medium Drip when someone rang his doorbell. Groaning, he got up. Who could it be? As far as he knew, he and his two best friends didn’t plan anything.

When he opened the door, none other than Hunter, his ex, was standing in front of him.

“Hello, Blaine”, he greeted him, already sounding remorseful.

“Hunter”, Blaine said coolly. “What are you doing here?”

“I…I wanted to apologize”, Hunter admitted sheepishly. “What I did was wrong, and I am so sorry now.”

Blaine laughed bitterly. “I could turn a blind eye once, twice, yes, even four times. But after the fifth time, enough was enough.”

“Please give me a second chance, Blaine.”, Hunter pleaded. “I will change, I promise. I swear to god, I will…”

“No”, Blaine said insistently. “No, no, _no_.” Their breakup still hurt, and he really didn’t want to tear open old wounds that almost healed. It took them so long to heal.

“You hurt me bad, Hunter, and you don’t deserve another chance. So please leave”, Blaine ordered, crossing his arms.

“I’m sure I have a good reason to make you change your mind”, Hunter retorted softly.

“Which is?”

“This.” With that, Hunter pulled Blaine closer – and kissed him. Blaine made a protesting noise with his mouth, but his heartbeat quickened, and his knees got as soft as butter. And finally, he gave in to his craving. Yes, he hated Hunter with every inch of his body, but he was a great kisser. And even better in…

Overwhelmed by lust, they both stumbled into Blaine’s apartment, Blaine dizzily slammed his door shut. He was sure that he would regret soon what they were about to do, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. After all, he was just a guy with needs he could no longer ignore. Hunter was just a means to an end, nothing more.

That's what he kept on telling himself as long as he could think clearly.

Blindly, Blaine dragged Hunter to his bed without stopping kissing him, trying to undo the annoying zipper of his ex’s jeans.

…

“As you can see, this outfit looks more like what our target group would wear”, Kurt said, standing in front of the meeting table and presenting the sketch of the outfit.

Aisha, a stylish Muslim woman with blue eyes and a hijab, cocked her head to the side. “Why does that look kind of remind me of Sailor Moon? I mean, that blue mini sailor skirt and that white blouse are obviously screaming Bunny Tsukino.”

Kurt blushed and rubbed his neck. “That’s not true, that’s…pure coincidence. And besides, Sailor Moon was a great series that made my early childhood.”

“Yes, and also great for guys that need some jack-off-material”, Tabetha muttered, and some of her colleagues laughed.

“Just laugh, but you won’t laugh anymore after the kids of this continent started wearing exactly those outfits…” He trailed off and his eyes widened. All he could do was stare with an open mouth.

His coworkers and his boss followed his glance, but there was nothing but their meeting desk.

“ _I. Can’t. Believe. It._ NOT AGAIN!”, Kurt yelled, absolutely scandalous. “Oh my GOSH! You got to be kidding me!!!”

Because Blaine was about to make out with his ex NAKEDLY.

On their _freaking meeting desk_. Kurt was close to puking. He would never be able to touch that desk without gloves ever again.

He forced himself not to look at what happened in front of his eyes. Instead, he threw his hands up in exasperation. “That’s it. I give up.” He rushed over to the door, throwing his coworkers plus his boss apologetic glances. “I…I don’t feel good. I will take off the rest of this day. I can mail you the rest of my sketches, we will talk about them as soon as…”

 _Those hooligans on the table stopped having sex in front of his mind’s eyes_.

“…I feel better.” Without waiting for their reaction, Kurt rushed out of the meeting room and back to the thankfully empty bathroom, scowling at Blaine who was still pretty busy with sticking his tongue down his ex’s throat.

“What the hell, Anderson?!”

…

Blaine jerked back when he heard Kurt’s pissed voice.

“Kurt”, he wheezed, quickly covering himself. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same”, Kurt scoffed, pointing at Hunter who was about to kiss Blaine’s neck. “I thought he broke your little pathetic heart?”

“He kind of did”, Blaine admitted contritely. “But you know, I have to do what I have to do, if you understand what I mean.”

“But not with that jerk of all people!”, Kurt almost yelled. “He doesn’t deserve you. He hurt you and you are letting him get away with that.”

Blaine sighed while he let Hunter caress his hips. “And what else am I supposed to do, Mr. Know-It-All?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Of course I need to clean up _your_ mess.”, he sighed theatrically. “Get off me, Clarington”, he said roughly, noticing that his words came out of Blaine’s mouth now. “The show’s over. Grab your things and leave, I don’t want to see your insufferable mug again. _Never again_ , are we clear?”

Hunter blinked in surprise. “But it was about to get funny now”, he complained. “Please, Blainers. You know you want it.”

Kurt could literally feel how close Blaine was to giving in, but luckily, he was the one who was in control now.

“Get the hell out of my apartment!”, he yelled. “Or shall I help along with getting you out of here?”, he added belligerently.

Blaine's ex lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I got it”, he muttered, quickly gathering his pants and his shirt after having put on his boxers. “Someone’s in a bad mood…” Before he went out of the door, he turned around one last time. “In case you change your mind, we could…”

“ _Leave,_ goddammit!!!”, Kurt roared with narrowed eyes, crossing his arms angrily.

Finally, Hunter left, and Kurt turned to Blaine, still looking mad. _“Why?”_

“Why what?”, Blaine asked, sheepishly looking down.

“Why did you put up with how he acts? He’s a jerk, and we both know it. Instead of giving him the brush-off, you reward him with sexual services? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m not perfect, I’m aware!”, Blaine answered with a frown. “But I’m only human, okay?”

Kurt sadly shook his head when he left the building and hailed a cab. When he sat in the vehicle, he retrieved his phone, pretending that he had a phone call so that the taxi driver didn’t look at him weirdly. “Yes, but you are pretending you don’t deserve better. But you do. You deserve someone who is on a par with you. Someone who understands you. Someone…”

“…like you?”, Blaine cut him off.

When he said that sentence, Kurt’s eyes widened. “Blaine…”

“What is it?” Blaine looked at him challengingly. “Don’t tell me there is nothing going on between us, okay? That tension…that’s more than ambivalence. You like me and I like you more than we want to admit to ourselves.”

“But I have…”

“…Vince, I know”, he sighed. “Your fiancé, I understand. And I would never demand from you to end your relationship with him. I’m not that kind of person that destroys relationships.”

Kurt nodded slowly. “Thank you.”, he whispered.

“But I will wait.”, Blaine said, determined. “I will wait for you, no matter how long. Someday, you will be mine, and I will be yours.”

Kurt was at a loss of words, mad at himself his mind couldn't think of a snappy answer. For some reason, a cold shiver was running down his spine when Blaine said that sentence. He could still feel it when he walked up the stairs to his apartment fifteen minutes later after their connection broke off.

Still shocked, Kurt unlocked the door.

And yelped once again when he saw Finn and that girl, Harmony or something, on their couch who were about to do it.

"I have to admit, you are indeed more talented in satisfying a woman than in preparing lattes", Harmony purred and let out a moan. "Come on, give it to me, Hudson"

“Oh, for CRYING _out loud_!!!”

The couple startled, looked up and quickly covered themselves with blankets. Finn’s eyes widened when he spotted Kurt on the doorway, his hair was a mess. “Dude, I thought you were still at work?”

Frustrated, Kurt banged his head against the door frame repeatedly. “ _Why_ the hell do I keep on walking in on people lately?!”

Covering his eyes, he quickly ran to his room and slammed his door shut. After having seen three couples who were about to have sex, he was convinced he needed some kind of therapy, otherwise, he would never get those images out of his mind and go crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing that chapter, hehe. I hope I didn't cross a line or something...


	12. Love is in the Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Triumphantly, Tina pumped her fist in the air and put down her reading glasses. Finally, she was done writing her brand-new novel her fans had been waiting for so long. As soon as she overcame her writer’s block, she got kissed by the muse.

The perfect story for her novel was closer than she thought. She just needed to add her own spice.

“Are you sure you want to publish this?”, Quinn who suddenly sat next to her, asked, cocking her eyebrows and looking at Tina’s display with a frown.

“I don’t see the problem”, Tina answered with a shrug.

“The problem is”, Quinn said stressing the word problem “that this is about the ten of us. You were writing down a biography of all of us.”

“That’s not true!”, the author answered her back stubbornly.

“Page 89.” Quinn scrolled up the Word Document, cleared her throat and started reading.

“ _Caitlynn paranoidly looked around to check whether nobody was following her. And yelped when she was suddenly dragged to a side street. A duo of scrawny men was looking at her, one of them had a gun in his hands. ‘Well, look at that, whom do we have here?’, guy number one said sneeringly, and Caitlynn’s eyes widened in shock when she spotted the gun._ ”

With narrowed eyes, Quinn turned to the author. “ _Caitlynn_? Are you serious, Tina? Sounds way too obvious, doesn’t it? You wrote about how Puck helped me out back then!”

“Pure coincidence”, Tina said insistently, crossing her arms.

“Page 34.” Quinn scrolled up. “ _’I am Tim, by the way’, Tim introduced himself as he didn’t know what else to say. ‘I am Raquelle’, the woman answered. ‘Dance instructor at Tisch.’”_

“I ran out of names?”, Tina justified nervously.

“You changed Sensates to Animates”, Quinn pointed out. “You mentioned the Council of Elders. And the Asian woman in the story who happens to be an author is called _Tia_. Way too many coincidences if you ask me. Stop lying to me, okay? I’m an attorney, I know immediately who lies and who doesn’t.”

Tina sighed deeply. “Okay, okay, you caught me. But you need to understand”, she explained. “All these things that happen to us, that’s a goldmine for an author like me. We need to share that story with the world.”

“No!”, Quinn said sternly. “We can’t! It’s too dangerous, don’t you see? What if people find out that this story is not as fictional as they thought? We are all going to be in serious trouble because we are special. I have seen enough movies to know that secrets like these should better stay secret.”

“But…”

“Besides, you cannot just publish that story where the ten of us have leading roles without our consent. That’s not only careless, that’s illegal as well.”

“But…”

“Tina, you won’t publish that book, end of the story”, Quinn barked in an authoritarian tone.

The author bowed her head. “Gosh, you are worse than my mom. I won’t publish it, calm down.”

“Good”, the blonde nodded before she broke off their connection.

With another deep sigh, Tina got up and walked to the living room where Mike was sitting on the sofa, zapping through her channels.

“Hey, babe”, her boyfriend said to her with a grin. “I didn’t want to disturb you in your creative process, so I just waited here.”

“You heard how…”

“…you talked to yourself?” Mike laughed. “Yes, yes, I did. But hey, I don’t judge you, a lot of artists do that while trying to be creative, you know. Did you already send your finalized work to the publisher?”

Tina shook her head, rubbing her neck. “You know what? I won’t publish it after all. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

Mike looked up from the TV and cocked his eyebrows. “Why not? You were working on that book for half an eternity, I witnessed every single step. You put your heart and soul into that book and we both know it. I understand you are nervous, but babe, you…”

“-I just don’t want it anymore, okay?”, Tina cut him off harshly and Mike flinched. “I’m sorry, it’s just…I don’t know whether publishing this is a good idea.”, she apologized afterwards.

“I’ve read it, and so did your editor”, Mike commented. “We both loved it. I’m sure the world will, too.”

“My mind is already made up”, Tina said tiredly. “We won’t pusblish this book, end of the story.” Ruffling her dark hair, she sighed: “I need some fresh coffee. Do you want one as well?”

Mike wanted to get up. “I can come with you”, he offered, but Tina just shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I need some time for myself. I will just bring you a hazelnut latte, okay?”

With that, she grabbed her keys and her wallet and left her apartment.

Mike confusedly scratched his head when he heard her run down the stairs.

_Women._

He would never figure them out.

After a while, he got up to go to the bathroom, going past Tina’s office on his way. The door was slightly ajar, her laptop was still open, so was the document with her finalized novel.

Cocking his head to the side, he entered the room.

* * *

Rachel rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms when she woke up. That hangover was killing her. She didn’t remember having drunk anything.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

_Oh no._

She knew that voice. Praying that she hadn’t heard the voice she thought having heard, the brunette slowly turned around in her bed.

Her prayers hadn’t been answered.

Firstly, this wasn’t her bedroom, or apartment.

Secondly, she was not alone.

Thirdly, the man who had just talked to her was Brody Weston, her ex. Her ex that practically cheated on her because he didn’t care telling her he worked as a gigolo.

 _Why_ the hell did she end up in bed with that douchebag?

As if stung by an adder, Rachel jumped up with the blanket, covering herself. “What happened yesterday?”, she asked while she gathered her things.

Brody shrugged nonchalantly. “You turned up on my porch, devastated. You were pretty drunk, but sober enough to demand a round of sex and didn’t want to talk, and I respected it. You’re welcome.”

At that, she threw him a killing glance. “I don’t know yet what happened, but I know for sure that this was a big mistake. A mistake that won’t happen ever again.” With one hand, she tried putting on her skirt. After she had put on her blouse as well, she grabbed her high heeled ankle boots, quickly pushed her bra and her socks into her purse and stumbled out of the door, still feeling dizzy.

“I hope we won’t see again, Brody. Have a nice life. No scratch that. Have a _horrible_ life. And go to hell. We are so done”, she hissed irritatedly when she left.

Brody just looked after her, bewildered.

Outside of his apartment, she hailed a cab and quickly got in. And suddenly, the memories about what happened the night before came back to her like an avalanche of emotions.

_-Fifteen hours earlier-_

_Good tempered, Rachel was about to walk over to Finn who was done with his last shift. She was grinning with anticipation. Today would be the day where she would admit that she liked him._

_A lot._

_Yes, Finn was sometimes somewhat…featherbrained, but he had a great heart. He was kind and generous. She could always talk to him; he was a great listener. He seemed to understand her. And he was good looking._

_Without a doubt, they were soulmates._

_Rachel smiled, looking at her flight ticket to Seattle. As nice talking in their heads was, she wanted to meet him in person. She would surprise him with the ticket now. And with a love declaration.  
_

_Exactly at that moment, she saw how Finn left the coffeeshop…with Harmony. Rachel’s smile faltered._

_Yes, she knew that Finn was dating women every now and then, but that thing with Harmony was going on for a while now. According to their smiles, they looked very happy._

_“What’s your favorite band?”, Finn just asked Harmony while Rachel watched them walk to that park nearby with linked arms._

_Rachel was unable to listen to their conversation. She was shocked. Shocked about how close they seemed to be._

_And when they kissed, something inside Rachel shattered into pieces. A single tear was running down her face, and then, a second._

_If she wasn’t connected emotionally to Finn, she could have lied to herself and brush it off, telling herself that it didn't mean anything. But the worst part was that she could feel Finn’s affection._

_Affection to another woman._

_And it hurt so much more than she could imagine. Devastated, Rachel turned away and ripped apart the ticket, forcing herself to break off the connection to Finn. Without thinking, she left her apartment and walked down to the bar that was right next to her apartment complex._

_A couple of hours and a lot of drinks later, she hailed a cab and told the guy the address of her ex._

_Alcohol didn’t help as much as she hoped it would. She needed to numb the pain with painkillers. And the only painkiller that came to her mind right now could be found in the arms of another certain guy, no feelings involved._

_…_

Rachel paled and banged her head against the glass pane of the taxi’s door. What was she thinking? Running right back to her douche ex just because of an unrequited crush? How could she ever go so low? Now that she thought about it, she felt ashamed. More ashamed than ever before in her life.

She was a respectable independent woman, goddammit. She didn’t need a man in her life to feel complete.

If only she could convince her heart as well.

* * *

Mercedes was about to feed some of the ducks at the pond nearby when Sam walked over to her, hands in his pockets.

“How are you?”, he asked casually.

“Fine?” Mercedes looked up from the ducks and looked him directly in the eyes. “Sam, you were never good in small talk. Just tell me why you are here now.”

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry. About what you needed to witness. Penny and I, we are just friends, nothing more.”

“I know”, Mercedes answered quietly. “And I’m sorry I flipped out. I don’t know myself what has gotten into me back then.”

“It’s okay. We are both over it, so let’s just forget it.”, Sam suggested.

For a while, the both of them were just staring at how Mercedes fed the ducks with grains, nobody dared to break the silence.

“And what if I don’t want to?”, Mercedes suddenly spoke up.

Sam frowned at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to forget it”, she explained without looking at him.

“Okay, I don’t get it”, he admitted. “And why not?”

Again, silence.

“I…” Mercedes didn’t dare to end that sentence.

Sam nudged her amicably. “Come on, Cedes, enlighten me”, he encouraged her with a smile. “You are aware I can read your mind whenever I want to? Which I would never do without your consent”, he added quickly when he noticed her somewhat indignant glance.

“I…I…” Mercedes needed to clear her throat. “The truth is that I like you, Sam. A lot.”

The Hawaiian just stared at her, at a loss of words.

“You are the nicest, funniest and dorkiest guy I know”, she went on. “And I can’t imagine my life without you anymore even though I only know you for a couple of months now. You quickly became an important part of me, and that’s what I find scary.”

Sam just kept on staring at her.

“Please, say something, Sam”, she pleaded. “I told you how I feel because I want to get things straight concerning our feelings for each other. If you don’t requite these feelings, it’s o-“

She couldn’t end her sentence as Sam pulled her closer to himself and kissed her. Mercedes made a surprised noise, but soon, she requited his kiss with all she had.

Sam pulled away eventually. “I like you too”, he said breathlessly. “I liked you since the moment I saw you sing at that bar back then. I’m hopefully devoted to you, Mercedes Delilah Jones.”

Mercedes laughed quietly. “Did you just quote ‘Grease’?”

“Yes, yes, I did”, Sam confirmed with a goofy grin.

“Cute”, she whispered when she came closer to kiss him.

This time, they didn’t stop for a while. Even when they stumbled into Mercedes’ apartment. The make out session got wilder and wilder, both of them wanted more and more. Mercedes didn’t want to know how they must look to uninvolved people.

When they arrived at Mercedes’ bed, she softly pulled away. “Sam…”, she muttered. “I…” She bit back her moan after he had started sucking and nibbling on her neck. “There’s … there’s something I need to tell you…”

Sam looked up from her neck, still feeling aroused. “Yes?”, he answered hoarsely.

Mercedes started blushing and looked down sheepishly. “To be honest, I…I’m still a virgin.”

The blond surfer smiled seductively. “So? A lot of my exes were, that’s nothing to feel ashamed about.”

“And ... I intend to not have sex before I married, whether it is physically or only in my head”, she dropped the next bomb.

When she said that sentence, Sam stared at her, speechless.


	13. Shocking News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

For the third time that day, Rachel needed to run to the ladies’ room and throw up. While she wiped away the sweat, she wondered what could have caused that nausea. Did she get food poisoning?

“Ms. Berry?”, Maisie, one of her students asked from outside. “Are you okay?”

“Yes”, Rachel answered faintly. “I will be back in a-” She gagged and vomited again. “Forget it”, she corrected herself weakly “Tell Mrs. Despereaux I will take the rest of the day off.”

She heard how the little girl left the room, and sat up, wiping away the vomit from her mouth. Yesterday, she didn’t eat anything bad. The only other reason why she could feel so horrible could be…

Rachel’s eyes widened and she paled even more than before.

No way.

No no no no _noo_.

* * *

When Blaine entered his favorite coffeeshop, he saw that both, Wes and David, were engrossed in reading a novel, their coffees in front of them must be ice cold by now.

“Guys?”

No reaction.

“Guys!” Blaine clapped his hands, and his two friends startled and looked up.

“Oh, hey Blaine”, Wes greeted him shortly, David just muttered something unintelligible before they both turned back to their books again.

Blaine put his hands on his hips, glaring at his friends. “Are you freaking kidding me?”, he asked them, offended by their ignorance.

“Sorry, Blainers”, David murmured “But that book is just awesome. Vivian Kennedy’s books always have been good, but this one is just pure genius writing.”

When he heard the name of Tina’s alias, Blaine perked up his ears. “Vivian Kennedy?”, he repeated.

“Yeah”, Wes confirmed without looking up. “It’s called _Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now_. And it’s about ten different people from across the States who are linked to each other with a telepathic bond.”

Blaine almost dropped his Medium Drip when he heard that. His eyes widened in shock. “L…Linked?”

“That Blake dude is just like you, Blainers, as if Vivian Kennedy knew you personally”, David said amusedly. “Wait, let me read out loud the best part.” He cleared his throat overdramatically.

“ _Blake just cocked his eyebrow unimpressedly when he looked back and forth between Curtis and Vaughn._

_‘Are you sure you want to marry that guy?’, he asked, crossing his slightly muscular arms and looking at Curtis with his piercing brown-golden eyes. ‘You don’t even love him.’”_

While both of his friends cracked up, Blaine felt how he started blushing. He kind of felt ashamed when he thought about it, this was definitely not a moment he was proud of.

Besides…what the hell?

How dared Tina share all of what happened to them lately? What he and Kurt had done was none of the world’s business, for god’s sake!

* * *

Santana was fuming when she saw the novel _Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now_ in all of the display windows of the bookshops she passed.

One of Brittany’s friend, a bookworm, had texted her how great that book was and that she and Salvatora, one of the leads and (coincidentally) the only Latina, shared a lot of similarities.

Getting a bad premonition, Santana had bought the E-Book version of that novel and read the first couple of chapters, realizing that she and Salvatora not only shared similarities.

She _was_ Salvatora.

The impulsive Latina who worked as a Stripper at a Striptease club in Florida and who had an affair with a hot smart blonde called Bailey, a woman who lacked in social competences despite her high IQ. Despite all their differences, they finally got together, not caring about what other people around them thought about it.

Sounded familiar, right?

Because it was _hers and Brittany’s love story_ , one to one. People who knew them would know soon that this story was about them, and they would start posing questions.

Santana refrained herself from storming into the store and setting all of these novels in fire. What she and Brittany were doing was none of the others’ business, goddammit!

 _"Ay dios mio"_ , she muttered grimly. Tina would pay, she would make sure of that. She couldn’t just get away with stealing their love story.

* * *

Tina was about to prepare a turkey sandwich in her kitchen when she turned around – and looked into the eyes of nine pissed people. She yelped, dropping the mayonnaise tube.

“What the hell, guys?”, she asked them irritatedly. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“What. Is that?”, Quinn asked sharply, angrily pointing at her exemplar of the novel she had bought earlier that day. “I thought we agreed on that you won’t publish that story!”

“But…but I didn’t!”, Tina defended herself, her eyes widened when she recognized the title page of her novel. “I never sent that to the publisher, I swear!”

“And why is that book on the bestseller lists all over the US?”, Finn asked her with cocked eyebrows. “The story about ten strangers who discover they have telepathic powers?”

“I…” Tina honestly didn’t know what to say. “Did you at least like it?”

Mercedes crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, not looking less angry than Quinn. “McKenzie said the N word at least one hundred times. That’s what you think about me? That bitch is the blackest person I know, it literally screams cliché. I never thought you would take tokenism that seriously. And as if it wasn’t bad enough, McKenzie refused to have Mind Sex with Sawyer. You basically told the entire world I’m still a virgin!”

Puck looked at her. “You serious? Aw, sorry, man”, he said to Sam, smirking dirtily.

“Shut the hell up, Puckerman!”, Sam and Mercedes shouted in unison.

“Speaking of clichés” Kurt cleared his throat, beyond pissed. “How dare you telling the world I fainted at my wedding?! And _Curtis!_? You didn’t even try to find a name that didn’t give away my identity!”

“And in your story, you make Blake look like a man whore just because I... _he_ had sex with Hughes”, Blaine complained. “But I’m not!”

“Not _always_ ”, Puck muttered under his breath.

“Guys…” Tina was slowly getting a headache.

“I would beat the crap out of you if I could, Cohen-Chang”, Santana growled with clenched fists. “I really like Britt and if I see her unhappy just because of your fucking book, I swear on my Abuela’s grave, you will have an enemy in me.”

“At least, Neil Pokerman’s and Caitlynn’s love story is hot”, Puck said proudly. He was the only one who didn’t look pissed.

Rachel had stayed weirdly silent all the time, which was unusual for her, but nobody noticed as everyone was too preoccupied with his/her own problems.

“Tina? Baby?”

Startled, Tina turned around as she had heard Mike’s voice from the hallway. “I’m in the kitchen”, she shouted back, shooing away her entourage.

With a smile, her boyfriend entered, holding a bag in the air. “I brought us hamburgers; I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all”, she piped, hiding the whitebread and the other ingredients for her turkey sandwich behind her back. “That’s perfect.”

Mike sat down on one of the barstools next to the counter, still grinning at his girlfriend for some reason. “You know what? There is something I need to tell you.”

“Oooh, surprises. I love surprises”, Tina hummed. “What is it?”

“Do you remember when you said you didn’t want to publish your novel?”

“Yes?” Tina cocked her head to the side.

“Well…I sent it to the publisher and the people out there already love it”, Mike admitted, beaming proudly. “At least one hundred of my closest friends have read it by now, even some of the celebs, and they will all recommend it to other people. I told you not to worry about it, darling.”

Tina’s face fell. “It…it was you?”

“I thought you were more ecstatic about it” Mike looked at her confusedly. “What’s the problem?”

“How could you?!” Tina jumped up and glared at him. “I told you I wasn’t ready for publishing that story and you didn’t respect it.”

“Tina…”

“Get out. Now!”, she yelled at him, her face was red with anger. “You probably just ruined my life. I don’t want to see you for a while, Michael. I’m so disappointed in you.”

Lifting his hands in surrender, Mike got up and slowly went towards the door. “I don’t understand. I…I don’t know what I did wrong to upset you, Tina. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Well…you were wrong”, Tina answered coldly. She pointed towards the door. “Now _leave._ ”

After he was gone, Tina leaned against the door, slumped down, buried her face in her hands and started crying.

* * *

Praying that the result wouldn’t turn out as she feared it would, Rachel put away her finger.

And almost fainted because of the shock that followed.

…

Minutes passed, and Rachel was still sitting on the cold floor, staring at the result of her pregnancy test. How could she? How could she have unprotected sex with her ex just because she got weak? The same ex she cursed at two and a half weeks ago. The future father of that munchkin inside her.

It was a disaster.

After the initial shock followed desperation. She wasn’t ready for raising a child yet. Especially not with someone like Brody. She could barely take care of herself, how could she take care of a baby, all alone?

Rachel buried her face in her hands and started crying.

…

After having sprayed himself with his girlfriend’s favorite cologne, Finn left the apartment, grinning. Today was his and Harmony’s anniversary, they were a couple for exactly two and a half weeks now.

Harmony couldn’t wait, she already reserved them a table at one of those fancy lobster restaurants. Finn felt his mouth water. He _loved_ lobsters. This date was going to be perfect.

His phone vibrated and Finn took it out of his pocket.

_Harmony: Can’t wait for my lobster ... and for the dessert afterwards ;) See you in five, babe_

He quickly typed in an answer, feeling aroused.

_Finn: I love you so much right now…_

Finn grinned widely. Gosh, how he loved that woman. He never would have thought things would turn out like that at their first meeting back then at the coffeeshop.

Suddenly, he heard someone sob next to him. Finn turned around – and saw himself standing at someone else’s bathroom. But not just anyone’s bathroom.

“Rachel?”, he said after he had looked down and spotted the brunette. His eyes widened when he noticed that she was the one crying. He quickly kneeled down next to her. “Hey, what happened?”

She looked up to him with her tear-stained face. “Nothing, nothing”, she said faintly, wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her sweater.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me”, Finn stated. “You can tell me everything, Rachel, you know that, right?”

“Not that” Rachel started laughing bitterly and burst into tears again.

“Hey, hey, hey” Finn pulled her closer to himself and hugged her, her body was shaking with sobs. “Shshsh…” He reassuringly caressed her back and just held her tight while tears were streaming down her face. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to”, he whispered “But whatever it is: You are not alone.”

“Don’t…don’t you have a date with Harmony now?”, Rachel said into his shoulder.

Finn just waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. Harmony will understand. You need me more now.”

So the two of them continued sitting on the floor of Rachel’s bathroom with Rachel crying and Finn just holding her, whispering reassuring words into her ear.

…

Harmony was sipping on her champagne, waiting for her boyfriend to show up. Which lobster would she choose? An entire one or the lobster Newberg? What a hard choice.

_-Ten minutes later-_

Harmony let the waiter refill her glass of champagne and gnawed on the breadsticks every costumer got as an appetizer. It was not exactly uncommon that men were late, so she was not that surprised. He would show up any moment and apologize.

_-Twenty minutes later-_

Still no Finn Hudson far and wide, and he didn’t even react to one of the texts or WhatsApp messages Harmony had sent him. She was slowly getting worried. Did something happen to him?

_-Forty-five minutes later-_

She reasoned that Finn must have ditched her. On their two-and-a-half-week anniversary of all days! How dared he?! Ghosting her was not normal anymore. What if he was about to have sex with another woman now?

_-One and a half hours later-_

Harmony picked up the last crumble of the breadsticks box and put it onto her tongue. Yup, he definitely ditched her. And he was definitely cheating on her because he hadn't been online for almost two hours now. 

What a douchebag!!

“Excuse me?” A handsome man came over to her and smiled charmingly. “Is that place still free?”

“Yes”, Harmony snapped without thinking twice.

The man, unfazed by her irritation, sat down on her opposite. “Did your date ditch you?”

Harmony just nodded, still pissed about it. “And what about you? Did your wife elope with your best friend?”, she asked him bitterly.

He shook his head. “And I’m bi, by the way.”

“And engaged”, Harmony added, noticing the engagement ring on his finger. The man waved it off. “It’s nothing serious. It’s kind of an open relationship, actually” He waved at the waitress who just went past their table. “I want the best wine you have at this place, for me and that beautiful lady.”

“Of course, Sir”, the waitress answered obediently and left.

Harmony smiled at him. “Thank you, handsome. I’m Harmony, by the way.”

“Vincent”, Vincent introduced himself and kissed her hand. “Enchanté.”

“Looks like this evening won’t be ruined after all”, the brown haired woman gushed delightedly.


	14. Long Distance Relationships Reimagined

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Kurt searched through all of his accessories, slowly getting frustrated. Where the hell was his favorite scarf? Actually, he had been with his workmates Madelyn, Aisha and Tabetha, pregaming at Aisha’s place before they would go out and party. He had told them that he had bought a scarf signed by Alexander McQueen and nobody believed him. So he decided to drive home to search for it and prove them he was right.

So there he was, searching through all of his things to find that darned garment.

What if he had left it at Vince’s apartment? Vince would be back from Siberia in a couple of days.

Rolling his eyes, Kurt retrieved his fiancé’s keys from his drawer and left his apartment, tripping a couple of times. Thanks to the alcohol in his system, he kind of felt tipsy already. He was so not in the mood for driving to Vince’s apartment.

Vince’s place was on the other end of Seattle and he needed an eternity to get there even though the Uber driver was practically speeding.

“Thank you”, Kurt said with a wide smile “You will definitely get five stars.”

The uber driver, a young man, grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks, dude.”

He grabbed his coat and quickly got out of the car. The clock was ticking, he was supposed to meet with the girls in half an hour to go to a bar and continue their pub crawl. His friends _hated_ it whenever someone was running late. Maybe only fashion designers were obsessed with punctuality.

When Kurt wanted to cross the crowded street, he halted in his tracks and squinted at the other end of the road. His jaw practically dropped to the ground.

Because he saw how Vince was passionately making out with a woman. When they both pulled away to breathe, Vincent searched through his pockets to retrieve his keys and unlocked the door. The woman turned her head, and Kurt recognized Harmony’s face before she turned to Vince again to grab his face and kiss him. The both of them stumbled to the entrance door and entered the apartment complex without letting go of each other.

His eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.

His fiancé had an affair with his brother’s girlfriend??? What the hell?

Kurt felt how his bewilderment changed to outrage to…pain. He thought that Vince loved him, after all, they wanted to marry. Why didn’t Vince tell him he was back from Russia? Why did he cheat on him? And why with Harmony of all people?

Where did he go wrong?

…

Once again, Blaine was grading the homework of his students with a cup of coffee next to him. Kind of sad he worked on a Friday evening.

But he was fine with that. After all, he wasn’t sixteen anymore. He didn’t have to be spontaneous and adventuresome anymore. His two best friends, Wes and David, weren’t either.

Suddenly, someone came stumbling over to him. “Blaine!”, this someone exclaimed, sounding happy to see him.

“Kurt?” Confused and surprised, Blaine turned around. Since when did Kurt come to him voluntarily?

“You were right all the time, and I was wrong”, he told Blaine matter-off-factly “Vince is not the right one. You are, you were, all the time, and I was too stupid to notice it.”

Blaine frowned at him. “Kurt, are you okay?”

“Never felt better”, he answered. With a seductive grin, he pulled Blaine towards his bedroom. “Come on, Blaine, let’s do obscene things." It almost sounded like a command. "Let's make gay sex. Now."

“Do I smell alcohol in your breath?”, Blaine asked him skeptically. “Are you…are you drunk?”

Kurt stopped in his tracks and turned to him, looking serious. “I’m sober enough to know what I’m about to do now, Anderson. And don’t lie to me, I know exactly you want it too.” He continued tugging Blaine towards his bed. “Let’s undress and whoop it up.”

Blaine didn’t know what to say. “This is crazy”, he finally muttered. “You are crazy.”

“Not crazier than I have been my entire life”, Kurt said with a shrug. With that, he pulled him closer by his collar and started kissing Blaine relentlessly.

Blaine needed a couple of seconds to compose himself and requite the kiss. And a couple more seconds to pull away. “Kurt, we can’t”, he said softly. “You are engaged to Vincent.”

Kurt just blinked unimpressedly. “Vince who?”, he asked casually.

“Kurt, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He grabbed Blaine by the face and kissed him again. “Vincent was unfaithful, with my stepbrother’s girlfriend of all people, and I hate him for what he has done to me.”

“You need to talk about all this first”, Blaine countered. “Give him the chance to explain everything. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.”

Kurt let go of him and threw him an incredulous face. “What the hell is wrong with you, Blaine!” He frustratedly went up and down his bedroom. “A couple of days ago, you turn my world upside down, telling me that you like me and that you will wait for me, and now that I want to be yours, you want me to reconcile with my future ex-fiancé?”

“Because I love you!”, Blaine exclaimed, and Kurt halted in his tracks. “I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t want you to take the wrong direction. If I can’t make you happy but Vince can, so be it.”

Instead of answering, Kurt turned around and walked to him – just to kiss him again. “Oh Blaine”, he whispered into his ear. “Sometimes, you don’t see the forest for the trees.”

“What…what do you mean?”, Blaine asked breathlessly.

Kurt smiled whimsically. “Let me show you.”

They continued kissing and soon stumbled over to the bed, starting to undress each other.

Wes and David stood on the doorway to Blaine’s bedroom, watching their friend…making out with himself and starting to put off his clothes. Their jaws almost dropped to the ground.

“Oh boy”, David muttered. “I’ve never seen someone that enthusiastic while satisfying himself.”

“That guy seriously needs some hobbies”, Wes muttered, shaking his head.

* * *

Quinn was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling.

“What are you thinking about, attorney chick?”

The blond turned her head, looking straight into Puckerman’s eyes. “I’m thinking about what we have done. It was a big mistake.”

She quickly got up, searching for her clothes and putting them on in record time.

Puck watched her from the bed. “And why was it a mistake? Even you need to admit that we were awesome.”

“But it feels so wrong!”, Quinn exclaimed frustratedly while she put on her white high heels. “Puck, this is insane! You are in New Orleans and I’m in Manchester, we literally live in different worlds. We can never be.”

“Nonsense.” Puck shook his head fervently.

Quinn groaned while she put on her blouse. “This isn’t nonsense, Noah. According to statistics, 64% of all long-distance relationships fail.”

Puck sat up in his bed, still grinning. “And how many of these people were Sensates? Probably zero percent.” He got up and took Quinn’s hands. “We are not like all of those couples out there. We are different, and we are more awesome. Don’t let those pessimistic stats intimidate you, Attorney Chick.”

The blonde bit her lower lip, still looking skeptical. “I don’t know…”

“How can we know we will fail if we didn’t even try?”, Puck cut her off. “You don’t just need to rely on what all these smartasses say.”

“Fine!”, Quinn finally gave him. “Let’s give this a shot. But it’s only a test run, okay?”

The cop victoriously pumped his fist in the air and cheered loudly.

“But it still feels wrong”, Quinn muttered.

“It feels wrong?”, Puck asked her impishly, getting up and tugging her towards her bed again. “Let’s make it feel right.”

Quinn hit him on his chest. “You’re such a sex maniac, Puckerman”, she scolded him playfully. “I love it.”

* * *

“And you’re sure you don’t mind that I don’t want sex for now?”, Mercedes asked Sam between the kisses. The two of them were on the sofa in Mercedes’ apartment, making out.

Sam looked up and shook his head. “I really don’t mind, I already told you.” He leaned in and wanted to kiss her again when suddenly –

“Mercedes?”

The two of them immediately jumped apart and Mercedes looked up like a deer caught in headlight when she spotted a certain woman in her living room.

“Mom?”

“What in god’s name are you doing?”, Naomi Jones asked her scandalously.

Mercedes exchanged panicked glances with Sam. This was going to be hard to explain.

“What are you doing here? How did you even come in?”, she asked her mother quickly to change the topic.

“You always hide your second key under your plant, Mercy”, her mother reminded her and shook her head disapprovingly. “That’s basically an invitation for all those burglars. And I came to see how you are, I was close to your place, so I thought I could drop by.”

Naomi looked around in her daughter’s living room and sat down on her armchair. Mercedes and Sam didn’t look so pleased about it. “So that’s what you are doing instead of working on your doctoral thesis? Finger yourself?”

Mercedes really wished the floor would open underneath her and swallow her whole. Sam must have known what she was thinking and threw her a compassionate glance.

“Mom, whatever I do in my spare time is none of your business”, she told her mother firmly.

Naomi grimaced. “I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry. Sometimes, I forget that you are a big girl now.”

“I’m twenty-six!”, she protested. “I already have a job and a stable income. And I even have my own apartment and a boyfriend!” Mercedes quickly covered her mouth after she had said that sentence, and Sam’s eyes widened as well. Actually, she and Sam had never talked about their relationship status until now.

Her mom seemed to be surprised as well. “You have a boyfriend? Since when?”

Mercedes looked down sheepishly when she noticed that Sam was looking at her with interest as well. “Erm…for a while now, mom. It’s kind of a long-distance relationship.”

“And why didn’t you tell me about it? You and I, we used to be so close. You told me everything about your life.” Her mom looked disappointed, so disappointed it almost broke Mercedes’ heart. But seriously, what was she supposed to say?

_“You see, mom, I share a mental link with nine other people in this continent and I mentally made out with one of them a couple of times.”_

_Nope, wouldn’t do._

“And why not?”, Sam asked her curiously. “If you and your mom are so close, she will understand.”

Mercedes mentally turned to Sam, something they were able to do as of recently. “I can’t tell her about this yet. I don’t even understand this myself, Sam.”

“Mercedes?” Naomi snapped her finger in front of her daughter, and Mercedes blinked and looked at her mother, focusing on what happened in reality again.

“Sorry, mom, I was just…thinking about something.”

“And about what? Is there something else you are keeping from me?”, Naomi wanted to know, sounding sad about it.

Suddenly, Mercedes heard herself say: “How about we all have dinner together, you, me, dad and my awesome boyfriend?”

These definitely _weren’t_ her words.

“Thank me later”, Sam winked at her, and Mercedes threw him a killing glance - in her mind of course.

“What the hell was that for, Sam?”, she hissed.

Sam shrugged. “She looked so sad and I wanted to cheer her up a bit.”

In the meantime, Naomi’s eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea, Mercy! I’m so looking forward to meeting your little boyfriend. Is he white?”

“Mom!”

“Sorry, baby, I was just joking. I go with time so I’m colorblind.” Naomi winked at her daughter who had buried her face in her hands in shame. “As long as he is a gentleman, we are all going to approve of that boy. For some reason, the young generation is only into whitebread.”

Mercedes didn't dare to look into Sam's eyes again. Why couldn’t someone just shoot her now? Because seriously, she would be thankful for a short and merciless death to spare herself any more embarrassments.


	15. Learn From Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, next chapter :) Sorry it took me so long, I have to study for tons of exams lately and didn't have that much time to update my stories.
> 
> And nope, I still do not own anything.

Kurt gathered his things and started putting on his shirt. “Things cannot continue like that. I will go to Vince and break up with him.”

Blaine propped up in his bed and rubbed his head. “Do you think this is a good idea?”

“It’s not fair to lie to him and to ourselves” Kurt rushed to the door and grabbed his coat on the way.

“Why don’t you just call him?”, Blaine asked him with a frown, propping himself up on the bed. “That would spare you a lot of drama.”

Kurt shook his head fervently. “Breaking up over the phone is the most gutless way to end a relationship. No, I have to jump in at the deep end, drive to his place and tell him the plain truth.”

“About you being a Sensate?” Blaine cocked his eyebrows skeptically. “Is this a good idea?”

“I didn’t mean _that_ ”, he answered him back while he searched for his keys in his drawers. “I will just tell him I caught him with Harmony and that I was unfaithful because I slept with another man.”

“Another _more attractive_ man” Blaine wiggled his eyebrows. “And strictly speaking, you weren’t.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “This is serious, Blaine. I’m about to break another person’s heart. I feel like the most horrible being on this planet.”

“Hey, don’t forget that he cheated on you first”, Blaine pointed out. “If something, he has to feel bad, not you.”

“Thanks, Blaine.” Kurt smiled faintly before he went out of the door. “I guess I needed to hear that.”

…

When Kurt once again got out of the car of another Uber, he watched how Vince was about to leave his apartment and hail a cab.

Where was Vince driving now? Back to work? Kurt initially planned to break up with him privately, but if he had an audience where he could humiliate his fiancé, why not? After all, Vince didn’t deserve any better after he cheated on him. Kurt imagined how he would act up at the office, angrily slam the engagement ring at him and shout profanities at him. Yes, that was a great plan.

So he hailed a cab as well, telling him to follow Vince’s cab without him noticing.

Kurt cocked his eyebrows when Vince’s cab drove past his workplace. What else was supposed to be his destination? Was he on his way to Harmony to sleep with her again? Kurt angrily clenched his fists. That son of a…

Vince got out of the car, and Kurt told his cabdriver to pull over as well. He noticed how his fiancé paranoidly looked around and quickly hid behind the cab before Vince could spot him. After a while, Vince quickly started walking towards a forest, and Kurt followed him, hiding whenever Vincent turned around.

Kurt cursed when he noticed that his shoes were going to be dirty because of the muddy ground. Dammit, if he had known this was going to be a walk in a forest, he would have put on his least favorite ones. He quickly hid behind a fir tree when Vincent looked around and retrieved his phone. “Hello, boss? I will be there in five.”

Boss? Why should Mrs. Wright, a woman Kurt had never seen without high heels and glamourous clothes before, meet him at a muddy, dirty forest? Weird. When Vince quickly continued walking, Kurt followed him, careful not to make any noises. Finally, they arrived in front of a seemingly abandoned brick building.

What was Vince doing there?

Kurt quickly took cover behind a tree when Vince turned around once again to check whether no one had followed him. After he had done that, he entered the building, closing the door behind him.

Why all the secretiveness? Did Vince have something to hide? Maybe another affair he didn’t know about? What a douchebag. For some reason, Kurt was keen on finding out what exactly his fiancé was up to, so he waited a couple of seconds before he sneaked to the door as well, slowly opening the door.

And was surprised to look into an empty room. Where did Vince go?

Hold up – did he just hear voices coming from the basement?

On the tips of his toes, Kurt slowly sneaked to the staircase. It was not necessary to go down the stairs, the voices were loud enough for him to hear from were he was standing.

“Did you already find out about Isobel’s-”

“Her name is Isabelle, boss”, someone corrected the other person.

“-Isabelle’s protegés?”, the male voice asked.

Who was Isabelle?

“No, Sir. I was so close, but then, she wanted me to do that job in Russia. I couldn’t say no, or else, she would have found out. That woman was already skeptical because I showed up half a year ago, out of nowhere, and applied for a modelling job even though she wasn't even searching for new models. It was hard convincing her to employ me anyway.”

Kurt recognized Vince’s voice. What the hell where they talking about? Vince had never told him about that. Suddenly, he heard how someone smashed something to the floor that shattered into thousands of pieces, and Kurt flinched.

“How long were we working on that plan? For five years, or seven? And what do you do? Mess everything up! You are a disgrace for this organization, Slatter. A total failure.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“For how long have I been trying to find out who the leaders of the Sensates are? Or whether they even exist? Ten, maybe eleven years?!”

 _What_ did he just say?

“Isabelle Wright was our first trace, and our only one, and you messed everything up. You freaking _son of a bitch._ ”

Kurt’s eyes went wide. Did they…did they just talk about his boss? His boss had those powers as well? Why didn’t he know? And besides, his fiancé was working for a man who tried finding Sensates? He didn’t need to be a genius to know that they were up to no good.

Since he was too perplexed about the information he had just learned, he didn’t notice that someone was standing behind him now.

“Well, look at that”, this someone said sneeringly before he knocked Kurt down from behind and everything went black before he could even call for help mentally.

* * *

When Harmony entered Finn’s apartment, she was whistling good temperedly, carrying a box in her hands.

“Hey, baby, I got us cronuts with chocolate”, she chirped while she put down the box with the treats, not noticing that Finn was looking at her with a scowl.

“You cheated on me.” It was no question; it was a statement.

Harmony blinked when she looked up. “Wha…What are you talking about?” Even though she tried sounding calm, her voice was wavering a bit.

“Don’t try to deny it.” He crossed his arms, his gaze on her was cold. “Kurt has seen you yesterday when he went to Vincent’s apartment.”

“You mean your stepbrother who had been drunk yesterday evening?” She crossed her arms as well. “He could have just imagined things as intoxicated as he was, right?”

Finn bit back the comment that he had access to Kurt’s memory as well, and that he had practically seen it with his own eyes. “Why the hell should he lie, Harmony?”, he hissed irritatedly.

His girlfriend avoided his glance and rubbed her neck. Lying was pointless, she knew it. Besides, she always had been a horrible liar. “I’m sorry, Finn.”

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you cheated on me, with _my brother’s fiancé_ of all people. Why?”

“To begin with, I didn't know it was Kurt's fiancé! And I thought you ditched me for another woman”, she defended herself with tears in her eyes. “But then, there was this attractive guy who came over and consoled me…”

“With his balls?”, Finn snapped, eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe you can go so low just because I didn’t turn up to our date!”

“And why didn’t you?” Harmony looked at him challengingly. “Because of another woman, right?”

“Harmony…”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Go ahead. Tell me you didn’t ditch me for another woman.”

Finn sighed, opened his mouth, just to close it again. Why couldn’t he just lie?

Harmony seemed to know what that silence meant and nodded sadly. “I knew it.”

For a while, no one dared to say anything.

“Is she at least a good person?”, she finally broke the silence.

Finn needed to smile faintly when he nodded. “Oh, yes”, he muttered. “She’s an important part of my life.”

“Sounds great.”, Harmony said quietly, her voice cracked. A single tear was running down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away. “So I guess what we are doing now is pointless.”

Were they about to break up? Finn gulped. “I’m sorry, Harm.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Even though another tear was running down her face, she smiled at him valiantly. “We are just not meant to be with each other.” She turned on her heel and wanted to leave, but Finn grabbed her hand, turned her around again and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Thanks for awesome two and a half weeks”, he whispered into her hair.

She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes were watery. “No, I need to thank you”, she smiled. “You changed me to the better. Thanks to you, I think twice before I yell at a terrible barista.”

They both needed to laugh.

Harmony leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Goodbye, clumsy barista.” With that, she turned around and left.

Finn just stayed behind, staring at the spot where she had stood a couple of seconds ago, not quite knowing how to feel about what had just happened.

* * *

“You still didn’t talk to Mike?”, Artie asked Tina, surprised, when they were sharing a pepperoni pizza while watching _To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,_ part two.

The author shook her head fervently. “He published my book without my consent, Artie”, she explained huffishly. “Even though I told him a couple of days before that I didn’t want to publish it. Now, everyone knows about the existence of Sensates!”

Artie shrugged. “So? People also know about the alleged existence of witches, vampires, and mermaids. That doesn’t make them less fictious. Point is that they will all think it’s pure fiction, nothing more.”

“And what if they won’t?” Tina pushed the pause button of her remote and looked at Artie, serious. “This is no game, Arts. I got gifted with those extraordinary powers, and what did I do? I totally abused them, and I pissed off nine of my closest friends!”

For days now, none of the others wanted to talk to her, and Tina could even understand. After all, she shared all of what had happened to them to the entire world without leaving out a single detail. Dammit, what was she thinking when she wrote that stupid novel?

“They will calm down eventually”, Artie reassured her and bit into a pizza slice. “Everyone makes mistakes. And what do you do? You learn from your mistakes and do it differently next time.”

“If there is a next time, Arts”, Tina said sadly. “I don’t think they will ever forgive me. That mistake is way too grave for that.” She leaned her head against Artie’s shoulder, sighing.

“Oh, T...”, Artie muttered, softly caressing her temples.

At that moment, her phone rang, and the duo startled. Tina reached out for her phone and accepted the call.

“Hello?”

When the person on the other end of the line was talking, she was paling visibly. “I understand. Thanks for telling me. Have a nice day.”

She hung up, staring at her phone for a while.

Artie looked at her expectantly. “Who was it?”

“My publisher”, Tina answered, still looking stunned. She didn’t continue talking what drove Artie crazy.

“And why do you look like you have just seen a ghost? What did they want?”, he asked insistently.

“NBC called them”, she muttered. “They want Vivian Kennedy to come to Jimmy Fallon’s _Tonight Show_ and talk about her latest novel.”


	16. The Interview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything, and probably never will xD

Finn stood in front of his mirror, checking his outfit for the third time in the past ten minutes. Dammit, normally, he wasn’t so petty like Kurt, just because of stupid clothes. Speaking of which, he hadn’t heard of him for hours now, and he didn’t even answer when he sent him photos of which button up shirt to choose.

Normally, Kurt always answered immediately if it was about fashion, but his phone seemed to be turned off. And for some reason, Finn couldn’t reach him mentally as well.

Finn shrugged. Kurt was probably just taking a nap at his workplace, just like a couple of times before.

Back to the initial topic. You surely wonder why he suddenly cared about his appearance?

Yes, right, because of a woman. A special woman. The woman who was the reason why he and Harmony broke up. After Finn had come to terms with their breakup, he had realized that he never had really loved Harmony.

Okay, yes, he did, but not as intensely as he loved someone else.

Rachel was…how shall he put it? She was ambitious. And stubborn at times, but he didn’t care. She was independent and strong, and she was caring.

Without a doubt, she was the right one.

Speaking of the devil. Suddenly, Rachel was standing in front of him, rubbing her neck. “Oh, hey Finn.”

Finn smiled at her goofily. “I was about to come over to you, you know, kind of. There is something I need to tell you.”

For some reason, Rachel had a pained face expression. “Finn, I…”

“I think I’m in love with you.” Phew, not as hard as expected. “I love you, Rachel.”, he repeated, feeling lighter with every word. Actually, he felt like shouting it from the rooftops.

But instead of looking happy, Rachel’s face fell. “Oh, Finn”, she sighed.

Suddenly feeling insecure, Finn bowed his head. Did he overwhelm her with the love declaration? Wasn’t she ready yet, or worse, didn’t she love him? Scratch that, he knew exactly she did not _not_ like him, but there was something else bothering her. But reading her mind now would be an invasion of privacy, and a breach of trust.

“What about Harmony?”, she asked quietly, and he looked up again. “I thought the two of you were a couple?”

“Not anymore”, Finn answered tonelessly. “We…we broke up. Because we both weren’t honest to each other. We probably weren’t meant to be with other.”

Rachel sighed. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

“But hey, that’s good for you, for _us_ , right?” Finn looked at the brunette, pleading. “Rachel, please say something, I’m begging you.”

“Finn, you know exactly that I love you as well”, Rachel said slowly, and his eyes lit up, “But there is one little problem.”

“Which is?” Finn looked at her warmly. “You know you can tell me everything, right?”

“I’m pregnant”, she blurted out.

His brain needed a couple of seconds to process that piece of information before he called out: “Wait, what!?”

…

While Rachel sat on his couch, Finn was walking up and down the room, restless. For a while now.

“So let me get this straight, after you have seen me with Harmony, you decided to have sex with your slutty ex who impregnated you while you were drunk?”, he summarized.

Rachel nodded shortly.

“Oh, Rachel…”, he grumbled, ruffling his hair.

The brunette looked down her feet, sheepish. “To be honest, I didn’t even know whether I even wanted to have children one day. My plan was simple: Making it to Broadway, get famous, that’s all. Children would only have been in my way.” She moved her leg, thoughtful. “But now that I can say goodbye to those plans, I never have thought about what I will do instead.”

“Did you consider…to…you know…?”, Finn asked tentatively, only thinking the last part of his sentence.

Rachel who had read his mind, shook her head fervently. “No, of course not!” She softly caressed her abdomen and let out another sigh. “That being inside me shouldn’t suffer because of my silly mistake. I will keep the baby, of course.”

“And did you tell this Brody guy about … you know … the baby?”, he wanted to know.

“Until now, I just…couldn’t”, she confessed, and Finn looked at her incredulously. “I needed to process the information as well.” She laughed bitterly and humorlessly. “Funny that I made fun of Quinn not long ago because she got pregnant while she had drunk sex, and now, the same happened to me. That’s what’s called karma.” Rachel sadly looked down her stomach again. “I know Brody, he is the least responsible person of the world. He will leave whenever it gets serious. I’m sure he doesn’t want the baby.” Tears were welling up in her eyes, and Finn came over to her and pulled her in a hug

“Hey, I’m sure he will man up and stand by his responsibility”, he reassured her. “And if he doesn’t, I will help you with the baby.”

Rachel looked up to him. “Don’t be silly, Finn”, she said with a watery smile. “You have your life in Seattle, I don’t want you to give it up just because of me.”

He shook his head. “Being a barista at a mediocre coffeeshop is what you call a life?” Finn laughed. “Yes, Kurt is here as well, that’s definitely a pro, but that’s all. There is almost nothing that keeps me here in Seattle, and besides, I can talk to him in my head whenever I want to.”

Speaking of which, Finn still didn’t know about his whereabouts. Whatever, he was probably fine anyway.

Rachel pulled him closer to herself. “Did I already tell you how much I love you?”, she whispered to him.

Finn shrugged. “To be honest, that’s only the first time.”

“I know a better way to show you how much I do.”, she suggested with a wink and rose on her toes to kiss him softly.

* * *

Tina was nervous when she checked herself in front of the mirror backstage.

“How do I look, Arts?”, she asked her friend nervously, refraining herself from ruffling her blond wig. She had done everything in her power to hide her visual identity so that her family and friends wouldn’t recognize her on that TV-Show. Now, she was wearing a long, dirty blond wig, giant sunglasses, tons of makeup and cherry red lipstick, plus an extravagant [bright pink tulle dress](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/96/86/47/96864758bbee4d61e79c1e8322a7ca38.jpg) and a big sunhat.

“I wouldn’t recognize you if I met you on the streets”, Artie grinned, and Tina gave him two thumbs up. “But don’t you think it’s a bad idea to hide who you are, T? This is your opportunity to show the world your true self.”

Tina shook her head, careful not to let the hat drop. “I don’t want that, Artie. I want to stay anonymous. What if people start hating me if I show them who I am?”

“Ms. Kennedy?”, one of the assistant producers spoke up. “We are going to be on air in less than one minute.”

Tina nodded. “Alright”, she said and got up from her chair in her stilettos. Hopefully, she was not going to trip while on air.

“Good luck, I’m going to wait backstage.” Tina threw Artie one last nervous glance before he rolled to the back and started walking towards Jimmy Fallon who was already sitting on his armchair at the set.

“Are you nervous?”, Jimmy asked compassionately when Tina also took a seat and the executive producer gave them a sign that they would air in a couple of seconds.

Tina shrugged. “You could say that.”

“We are on air in five, four, three, two…”

Jimmy Fallon flashed his best stage smile before he looked into the camera and said: “Good evening, America, and welcome to the Tonight Show. This time, we are lucky to have a special guest whose name resounded throughout the land: Her name is Vivian Kennedy, and she blew our minds with another stunning novel of hers.” He turned to Tina. “Actually, Vivian, this is the first time you show your face to the world. How come you wanted to keep your identity a secret?”

“Well, Jimmy, that’s a good question”, she answered, somewhat nervous.

“It really is”, someone next to her suddenly spoke up sneeringly, and Tina didn’t need to turn around to know that Mercedes was standing behind her.

Ignoring her, Tina went on: “I wanted to share my stories with the world out there without revealing who I am because I was worried I could change because of all the fame. And my works could change as well.”

“Makes sense”, Jimmy agreed, looking her up and down “And what’s the matter with your adventurous outfit, if you don’t mind asking me?”

“Yeah, Cohen-Chang”, Santana who suddenly sat next to Jimmy, asked in a way ruder tone, and crossed her arms. Tina almost yelped and quickly bit her tongue, telling herself to get her act together.

“No, I don’t”, she joked, and was relieved when people in the audience actually laughed. “What can I say, I like it crazy and daring, that’s what I wanted to express with that outfit.”

At that, a guy suddenly burst into laughter, and Tina recognized Puck among the audience. “No offense, Asian Chick, but you don’t even dare trying out a new latte at the coffeeshop, so don’t say you are adventurous.”

Jimmy frowned a bit. “Can I be bold?”, he asked her, and when Tina said yes, he added: “To me, it seems as if you want to hide underneath your sunglasses and the hat. But me and my assumptions, they have always been farfetched, right? Maybe, you are just a fashionable woman that has a knack for trends.” He laughed a bit.

“If Kurt was here, he would so call you out because of that disastrous outfit”, Mercedes commented dryly. “And he would be right. You look like a clown.”

Tina sighed deeply before she turned to her friends (in her head, of course). “I totally get that you are mad at me, but can we please postpone that conversation?” With that, she concentrated on Jimmy and the Tonight Show again. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, Jimmy. I love that style; it’s so revealing and…airy.” In her pink tulle dress, she almost felt naked, but he didn’t have to know.

“Just like he didn’t have to know about my sex life?”, Blaine behind her scoffed with a scowl. “Just go on. Tell him about it just like you told him and this entire planet how I humped Hunter when I was vulnerable and weak.”

When Tina opened her mouth to tell Blaine for the hundredth time how sorry she was about what she had done to him and all of their friends, she closed it again and cleared her throat. “You know, Jimmy, you were right”, she said to the host who looked at her with surprise. “I wanted to hide who I am. And I was successful for almost two years.

But while I did so, I hurt people who are the most important to me.” She looked at Santana, Mercedes, Puck, and Blaine when she said that sentence. “And I’m so sorry for what I have done to them. If there was a way to undo it, I would do it immediately.” She absentmindedly played with the strand of her blond wig. “All this-“ She pointed at her outfit “That’s not me. That’s a fantasy character I made up to protect myself and to please my fans. I was scared that they wouldn’t accept me once they found out who I am.”

She slowly put down her hat and laid it onto the table, ignoring her friends who exchanged worried glances.

“Tina, you don’t need to do that, really”, Blaine said quickly.

“It’s okay, we already forgave you”, Mercedes added, but Tina shook her head.

“Guys, please. It’s my decision”, she answered with a wink and turned to Jimmy Fallon again. “But those days where I felt insecure are over. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want people to know who I am.”

She put off her sunglasses and smiled at the camera insecurely. “Vivian Kennedy is not who I am. I’m no glamourous white blonde who resides in a fancy mansion in Los Angeles.” Finally, she put down her wig and laid it onto her lap. “My real name is Tina Cohen-Chang, and I’m just a plain normal Asian girl who lives in a tiny apartment in Portland.”

The gasps of Jimmy Fallon, the audience and her friends were almost synchronous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, we are going to find out what happened to Kurt, don't worry ;)


	17. Monster-in-Law?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything

His head was hurting as hell when Kurt finally came to. He blinked and looked around. Where the hell was he? One thing was clear: He wasn’t at the lodge anymore; he was in some kind of storage room. His hands and ankles were tied to a chair and thanks to the tape glued to his mouth, he was unable to speak, or call for help.

_Great._

If only his head wasn’t hurting so bad and made it hard for him to focus, he would try to get help mentally. Vince and those people must have used some kind of drug on him so that he didn’t wake up that soon and he still felt kind of numb.

Kurt looked around in the storage room. He needed to find a way to cut open the ropes so that he could escape. But apart from the paper boxes and a couple of chairs, there was nothing sharp he could use to free himself. Unless…

He scooted closer to the corner of the wall behind him and started rubbing his hand bondages against the sharp corner. Maybe he could damage the ropes so that he could rip them apart.

Yes, sounded like a plan.

* * *

The paparazzi in front of Tina’s apartment complex just wouldn’t disappear, and it was kind of getting annoying now. Seriously, didn’t they have own lives, or other people to stalk?

It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Tina revealed who she was, and now, those reporters were camping in front of her home nonstop in hopes to get an interview with that bestseller author. Now, she knew how all of those celebrities must feel.

Artie who had refused to leave her side since her coming out peeked out of the curtains of her living room. “Those people have no lives”, he stated with a frown. “Seems like you will be trapped in here forever.”

Tina sighed deeply. “I knew something like that would happen if I told the entire world who I am. That’s why I invented Vivian Kennedy in the first place.”

At that moment, someone rang her doorbell, and she flinched.

Artie retrieved his baseball bat from his bag. “Now, those creeps even dare coming to your apartment? As far as I know, that’s a criminal act.”

“Tina, it’s me, Mike”, Mike said through the door.

“Mike?” Artie skeptically cocked one eyebrow. “Mike, the same guy who published your novel against your will, thus dragging you into this mess?”

“Tina, please, I’m sorry about what happened”, Mike went on. “And I’m here to help you, okay? Please just let me in so that we can talk about everything.”

Artie threw her a warning glance. “You still trust that guy, after everything he has done?”

Instead of answering, Tina unlocked the door and let Mike enter, a blond guy followed him.

“Who’s that?”, Artie asked him immediately and nodded to the guy behind Mike.

“That’s Spencer Porter”, Mike introduced him solemnly. “He already worked for the FBI and was in the Navy for one and a half years.”

Artie eyed him up and down with a frown. “So?”

“From now on, he will protect Tina wherever she will go. And of course, I will pay for it, that’s the very least I can do for you after I have dragged you into that situation.”

“ _He_ is supposed to protect Tina?”, Artie exclaimed incredulously. “Just look at him! He’s still a kid!”

“Hey!”, Spencer complained “I’m twenty-one! Well…almost…”

“Aha!” Artie crossed his arms victoriously. Mike threw him a killing glance. “Do you have a better idea?”, he snapped at him.

“Guys!”, Tina hissed sharply. “Get your act together, okay?” She looked back at Mike “I appreciate that you want to help me, but I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Yes, and besides, there have been a couple of bodyguards that raped their female clients”, Artie deadpanned.

“Maybe in your dreams”, Mike scoffed with a scowl. “Spencer is an exceptionally gifted martial artist that takes his responsibility more than serious.”

“So?”, Artie huffed “He still has something called libido.”

“But I’m not even into women”, Spencer spoke up.

“Shut up, Spencer!”, Mike and Artie snapped in unison while they were glaring at each other in a hostile way.

“Enough!”, Tina suddenly yelled irritatedly, and the guys flinched. She turned to Spencer with a smile. “So you can keep away all those annoying paparazzi from me?”

Spencer nodded shortly. “I will do everything that is necessary to keep you safe, Miss.”

“Fine”, Tina nodded. She tugged Spencer after her when she walked to her entrance door. “I’m in the mood for a latte, so let’s go to Starbucks and drink some coffee.”

“But I don’t drink caffeine while on duty”, Spencer pointed out.

“Now, you do”, Tina barked, and he flinched slightly. With a smile, she chirped: “Oh, Spencer, that’s the beginning of a great friendship.” With that, she and her new bodyguard left her apartment, leaving two dumbfounded guys behind.

“Did she just ditch us for a gay kid?”, Artie finally spoke up.

Mike nodded slowly. “I kind of start regretting I employed him…”

* * *

Whenever some of the guys came in to check on him, Kurt pretended he was still unconscious, just to continue rubbing the ropes on the corner as soon as they left. He had heard them mutter something about chloroforming him soon so that he didn’t wake up.

He would still need some time to free himself, but at least, he had made some progress. Hopefully, he would be able to free himself before they would drug him again.

* * *

“So Sam…how do you earn your living?”, Naomi Jones asked Sam while they were having dinner at their home with him.

As soon as Sam had promised her to have dinner with the Jones soon, he had booked a ticket to California. The first thing he and Mercedes did was kiss each other in real life – which felt by far better than only in their heads.

It was hard for them to not touch each other during dinner, because the only thing Sam wanted was to touch the woman next to him _everywhere_.

And according to Mercedes’ glances, she seemed to feel the same. But sadly, they couldn’t.

“No make out sessions while my parents are around”, Mercedes had told him when they drove towards her parents’ house.

“Not even mentally?”, Sam had whined.

“Not even mentally”, Mercedes confirmed sternly. “What kind of person would I be if I let you do it?”

So there they were, sitting next to each other and trying NOT to play footsie under the table.

“He is a professional surfer”, Mercedes answered for him and put a couple of carrots onto her plate. “He already won a lot of tournaments, right, Sam? You are a great surfer.”

Sam blushed a bit. “Let’s not exaggerate…”

“Interesting”, Conor said and eyed Sam up and down. “Did you already take part at Olympics?”

“Not yet, Sir”, Sam answered politely. “The first surf competitions of Olympics will take place next year.”

“And what do you want to do once your sports career is over?”, Naomi asked him curiously.

Mercedes threw her a strange glance.

Sam, however, answered: “Who knows? Until now, everything goes according to plan, but I will start thinking about how things will continue once the time is ripe.”

“I don’t think you answered my question, young man”, Naomi said with narrowed eyes. “As far as I know, sportspeople are young, maybe in their earlier twenties, or even teenagers. You, on the other hand, are already in your mid-twenties, once you turn thirty, people will watch out for younger talents, and there goes everything you have achieved.”

“Mom!” Mercedes threw her a killing glance and her dad a pleading, help-seeking one.

Luckily, Conor seemed to get it. “Isn’t your theory one little bit farfetched, darling?”, he said to his wife.

“You know exactly I’m right, Conor”, Naomi retorted calmly. She turned back to Sam. “Do you have some kind of backup plan? Did you go to college or something?”

Sam could literally feel how close Mercedes was to flipping out. Before he could open his mouth, she hissed with gritted teeth: “Sam is a grown-up man, mom.” Mercedes had narrowed her eyes angrily, looking like a volcano that was about to erupt. “He knows what he is doing. Just because people that didn’t graduate from college are not good enough for you, that doesn’t mean that everyone shares this opinion.”

Gosh, that’s why Sam loved that woman.

“Mercy, baby, I just want your best”, Naomi explained warmly “And I need to know whether your little white boy is on a par with you.”

At that, Mercedes got up jerkily. “That’s it, mom. I will no longer allow you insult my boyfriend like that. Come on, Sam, we are leaving.”

She took Sam’s hand and dragged him out of the living room, her parents were staring after them.

“Oh, and thanks for the dinner”, Sam said politely before Mercedes dragged him away. “Your pasta was delicious.”

* * *

Finally, _finally_ , the ropes loosened up a bit, and Kurt was able to rip them apart and free his hands. He hastily freed himself from the bondages of his ankles, carefully ripped off the tape on his mouth, got up and rushed over to the door which luckily was not locked.

Quick, Kurt rushed out of the door, careful not to trip because of his dizziness. Apparently, the chloroform in his system still didn’t wear off, and his limbs felt heavy.

Nevertheless, he forced himself to keep running.

When he left the building – he realized he hadn’t exactly been in a building.

He was on a _ship on high seas_. Disbelieving, Kurt stared at the aquamarine blue seawater. That’s why the surroundings felt so weird, because the ship was swaying on the waves all the time. 

Kurt paled while he looked down the sea. Now, the waves got bigger and more aggressive, the ship was moving around and he almost tripped a couple of times. How was he supposed to escape now? Vince or his men were nowhere to be seen, but it was only a matter of time until they would find him. Whether they were still close to the coast of Seattle? How long has it been since he had been knocked down? Whether Finn, Blaine and the others already worried about him? They certainly needed to know that something was wrong, after all, Kurt didn’t communicate with one of them for a while.

“How the hell could you escape?”, someone behind him said sharply, and Kurt flinched when he turned around. A man in his mid-thirties was standing in front of him with a scowl. He recognized that voice, it was the same guy that had knocked him down from behind.

“What do you even want from me?”, Kurt demanded to know.

The man laughed at him, and Kurt cocked his eyebrows. “We want nothing from you, young man”, he said slowly. “But you know way too much. You know about what we are planning.”

“And what is it you are planning?” He still didn’t know all the details about their plans.

“We are searching for a group of freaks.”, the man said gruffly. “People that have special powers, so called Sensates. We want to figure out how their brains are working. What if there is a way to give those powers to every human being on earth? That’s what we want to find out.”

 _They don’t know about me being a Sensate_ , Kurt thought. _I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time._

“I don’t know whether your plans are ethical, Sir”, he commented. “But what do I have to do with everything? Why did you kidnap me?”

The man snorted. “You know way too much, easy as that. Our boss is so close, and you can’t just interfere with our plans. You are a risk factor that needs to be erased.”

E…erased? Were they planning on killing him?

When the guy retrieved his gun, Kurt stepped back, the guard railing was the only thing behind him. In the meantime, the storm got stronger, so did the waves. “Okay, can we sort this out in another way?”, he said calmly. “Preferably where none of us needs to die?”

“Actually, I wanted to off you a while ago, but Vincent wanted to postpone it”, the man admitted. “And since Slatter is our bosses’ lapdog, our boss said yes.”

Kurt cocked his head to the side. “Vince tried to save me?”

The guy, however, laughed. “I don’t think so, kid. Maybe, he only took pity on you because he slept with you a couple of times.”

Kurt clenched his hands to fists. How could he ever be so stupid and think that Vincent genuinely loved him? How was he so stupid to engage to a complete stranger he didn't even know for half a year?

“Vince loved me”, he said with narrowed eyes. “I’m sure he had a reason for acting how he did.”

“Slatter only used you for our goals”, the guy answered him back. “He _never_ loved you.”

Kurt had no idea why he was so mad about that this man said out loud what he already knew. “Take that back”, he snapped.

“Nope.” The guy unimpressedly looked at his gun. “I know Slatter, he is a manwhore that is not interested in long-term relationships. To be honest, I was kind of surprised he held on so long this time. But in the end, you were just one of his trophies. You meant nothing for him. _Nothing_.”

That was the final straw. With balled fists, Kurt lunged at the other guy who didn’t see that one coming and dropped the gun that glid right to the edge of the ship – and fell down, right into the sea.

“You son of a bitch!”, the guy yelled. “Guys, he broke out! Move your sorry asses and help me, for fuck’s sake!”

“Vince loved me, you stupid jerk!”, Kurt yelled at him, wiping away the raindrops that fell into his face “I saw it in his eyes. Don’t dare telling me otherwise.”

The man punched him to his face, and Kurt reeled back, feeling how his nose started bleeding. Dammit, why was he still unable to use his powers?

“He never loved you, he is just an excellent actor”, the man sneered.

Kurt ducked down when he wanted to punch him again. “And what if he changed?”, he asked weakly while he wiped away the blood. Dammit, the chloroform was still affecting him, and he was afraid he would tip over any moment.

“People _never_ change, you _fucking idio_ t!”, that guy roared, and Kurt held on to the railing to get up again. “Especially not someone as rotten as Slatter.” He gripped both of Kurt’s shoulders and looked him deep in the eyes. “But it won’t matter anymore, you are going to die soon anyway.”

This time, an exceptionally strong wave hit the ship, and since Kurt was leaning against the railing, he lost his balance – and fell right into the aggressive waves.

The other guy, however, was able to get a grip on the railing before he could fall in as well. “Goddammit!”, he yelled loudly when he searched for his captive with his eyes, but it was no use; Kurt was nowhere to be seen.

As if the waves swallowed him completely.

 _“Shit!_ ”, he cursed loudly, bumping his fist in the air. “How am I going to explain this to the boss?” He halted in his tracks and looked down the waves again. The probability of surviving this kind of storm on the open ocean were practically zero percent, even for strong swimmers, right? Especially for someone who had been drugged not long ago.

He rubbed his hands, breaking into loud, diabolic laughter. _Problem solved._ His boss was going to be so proud of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunn!!!


	18. Sometimes Everything Is Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

It was nearly impossible to get back to the surface again, the current was way too strong for that, and Kurt was far too weak. The chloroform in his system didn’t make this easier for him as well, so he was pretty much doomed. Even though he was kicking his legs with all he had, it didn’t help that much. He had a feeling that he got dragged deeper down the more he moved.

So he concentrated on trying to communicate with the others instead. Which was easier said than done.

…

Blaine was standing in the lecture hall, trying to tell his demotivated students about Shakespeare’s _All’s Well That Ends Well_. Outside, it was getting warmer and warmer, and they were not in the mood for staying inside, day in day out. Blaine felt them, when he was younger, it had pissed him off as well.

Suddenly, none other than Kurt came stumbling over to him. But something seemed to be very, very wrong, Blaine could tell on first sight.

“Kurt?”, he asked him worriedly. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Only now, he noticed that Kurt was soakingly wet, his lips were blue and he was paler than usually. With an apologetic smile, he turned to his students. “I need to go, guys. But please make sure to read _All’s Well That Ends Well_ , pages 68 to 90, and write an analysis of those chapters as well.”

With that, he turned around and quickly left the lecture hall, behind him, some of his students sighed a breath of relief. Once outside, he quickly rushed to his office, closed the door behind him – and turned back to Kurt who looked even worse than before. “Kurt, please say something”, he pleaded. “Where are you?”

When he asked that sentence, he reopened his eyes – and found himself underwater, tossed around by strong waves. His eyes widened. What the hell happened to Kurt?

“I…I think I’m going to die”, Kurt stammered “I don’t know how long I can hold on.”

“Hey, you won’t die, I won’t allow it”, Blaine said insistently. “Kurt, where are you? I will go get help, immediately.”

“No, Blaine, listen”, Kurt said to him, looking into his eyes directly. “My boss, Mrs. Wright, she’s a Sensate as well. Vince is part of a shady organization that wants to find Sensates and experiment on them. In case I won’t make it, I want you to find Mrs. Wright and warn her.”

Blaine shook his head fervently. “That’s nonsense, Kurt. You will make it, and you will tell her yourself.”

“I _can’t_ , Blaine”, Kurt said weakly and breathlessly “It’s only a matter of time until I run out of air and will pass out, and if that happens, it’s over for me.”

He fell, and Blaine kneeled down next to him and pulled him closer to himself. “Please, Kurt, hold on one little bit, okay?”, he pleaded with tears in his eyes, his voice was wavering. “Tina’s friend Artie is a computer hacker, he can locate the last location of your phone and-“

Kurt squeezed his hand “It’s okay, Blaine”, he whispered faintly.

“No, I won’t give up on you!” Blaine started sobbing when he realized how serious that situation was. “We…we still had plans, right? We wanted to found a family with tons of kids and grow old together. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“You will find someone else for that, of that I’m sure”, Kurt answered softly and wiped away the tears that were running down Blaine’s face. In the meantime, his lips had turned alarmingly white; Blaine didn't want to know what that was supposed to mean.

“But I don’t want anyone else, I want _you_ ”, Blaine cried brokenly. “I _always_ wanted you. Please, Kurt, you can't do that to me. We will find a way to save you, I swear!”

Kurt straightened up a bit and kissed him softly. “Goodbye, Blaine.”

“Please, don’t leave me”, Blaine said desperately. “I need you, more than anything.” All of a sudden, Kurt wasn’t lying in his arms anymore. The last thing he saw was Kurt floating in the water lifelessly, then, Blaine found himself sitting on his office’s floor again.

“Kurt?”

No answer.

“Kurt!”, Blaine yelled, but to no avail.

He was gone.

Devastated, Blaine hugged his knees and started crying hysterically, his body was trembling with sobs.

“Blainers? I need to hand in my homework, and I need your…” David who had just entered Blaine’s office, noticed his friend’s breakdown, his eyes widened in shock. “Hey, what’s wrong, Blaine?”

“He…he…he’s …” Blaine’s hysterical crying made it impossible to end that sentence, and David rushed over to him to pull him into a tight hug.

…

_-Two weeks later-_

The girls’ sobs were almost synchronous when they hugged each other at the Airport of Lima, Ohio.

“I just can’t believe it.” Tina wiped away her tears “One moment, he was as fit as a fiddle, the next, you learn he’s not among us anymore.”

Puck, Finn, and Sam were standing next to the girls with expressionless face expressions.

Blaine had stayed silent all the time; his face was pale, his lips nothing more than bloodless lines.

“Something is missing without Porcelain”, Santana agreed. Even though she was smiling valiantly, there were tears in her eyes as well.

“Funny that we all didn’t meet in person until disaster strikes”, Sam muttered quietly. Mercedes took his hand and squeezed it.

“Why did none of us ever wonder where he was all the time?”, Rachel asked in the round, her eyes were red and swollen from all the crying. “He was absent for a couple of days, but we were all so caught up with our own problems that we didn’t notice, or care.” She carefully caressed her abdomen, and Quinn cocked her eyebrows.

“I never would have thought that you would be the second one among us that gets preggers, Berry”, she commented, her voice sounded nasal, probably because she had been crying as well.

“Yeah, I always thought it would be Tina”, Puck agreed with a faint, humorless smirk.

Tina glared at him after having blown her nose. “Hey!”

“Speaking of which, who’s that guy?” Finn pointed at the bodyguard behind her that wore dark shades.

“That’s Spencer”, Tina answered shortly. “After the Vivian-Kennedy-fiasco, Mike hired him for me. He will follow me around in case people want to stalk me or something.” She pointed at a couple of onlookers that were taking photos of her, but at the moment, she couldn't care less about it.

Finn nodded to the exit. “Shall we?”

“Off we go”, Santana agreed, trying to sound as if they were on the way to a party even though it was the exact opposite.

…

Finn took a deep breath when he rang the doorbell of his parents’ house. His mother opened the door, her eyes were red, so she must have cried as well. Burt had laid his hand on her shoulder, he had dark circles under his eyes as if he didn’t sleep for days, what he probably didn't.

“I’m so sorry”, Finn choked out when he pulled both of them into a tight hug.

They didn’t let go of each other for a long time, and after they finally did, Finn cleared his throat. “There’s…there’s something else I need to tell you. _We_ need to tell you.”

Carole looked at him, confused. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

At that moment, all of Finn’s friends came over to the porch.

“Finn?”, Burt asked him with his head cocked to the side “Who are those people?”

“We are Finn’s and Kurt’s friends”, Rachel explained and took Finn’s hand “And Finn and I are in a relationship.”

“Your tact is way off, Manhands”, Santana hissed in her head and rolled her eyes. “You can’t just go like a bull at a gate.”

Mercedes furrowed her eyebrows. “Can’t we postpone that, Santana?”

“Actually, we are _more_ than just friends”, Quinn explained to Finn’s parents. “It’s so much more than we can explain. And the circumstances of what happened to Kurt were not really conventional either.”

After Burt and Carole had exchanged confused glances, Burt made an inviting hand gesture. “How about you come in and we talk about all this?”

“Yes, I can make us tea and coffee, or whatever you want to drink”, Carole added with a warm smile.

“I guess you need something stronger than that”, Puck muttered under his breath, and Quinn elbowed him.

…

„So you are telling us that you all have…telepathic powers?”, Carole asked the group disbelievingly when they had told them the entire story.

“It’s so much more than that”, Rachel explained with a faint smile. “And apparently, there are people that want to find people like us and use us for their human experimentations.”

Burt had narrowed his eyes. “So these people did that to Kurt?” He clenched his hands to fists. “We need to tell the cops and get those jerks into jail. There is no way they just get away with it.”

“I am a cop”, Puck pointed out “And as I cop, I can tell you that we need proofs, or else, we are powerless as well. If we interrogate those guys, they will surely deny everything.”

“And they will claim that all that was only a tragic accident”, Tina added, sounding sad and bitter at the same time. “That Kurt’s death wasn’t their fault.”

“But Kurt is _not_ dead!”, Blaine suddenly exclaimed, and Mercedes and Quinn next to him flinched.

For a while, it was dead silent in the living room.

“Blaine, dude, you were the one who has seen it with his own eyes”, Sam finally broke the silence tentatively. “You saw yourself how he drowned.”

“But I can feel it”, Blaine said quietly. “There is something inside me that tells me he is not dead.”

Santana threw him a long pitiful glance. “As hard as it is to accept, his dead body is probably already lying on the sea ground, hobbit.”

“It’s been two weeks, Blaine”, Mercedes added broken-heartedly, her voice was breaking. “Two entire weeks where he didn’t return. If he was alive, we all would feel it. But none of us can feel the connection to him anymore, so…”

“He is NOT dead!”, Blaine yelled and jumped up. “Kurt is _not_ dead, do you understand? Why am I the only one who sees the truth? Why did you all give up on him?”

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room with tears running down his face.

For a while, nobody knew what to say.

“He and Kurt were a couple”, Sam explained quietly. “Blaine told me that he wanted to break up with Vince because of that.”

Suddenly, Rachel jumped up as well, her hand in front of her mouth. “I’m sorry but I need to throw up”, she said hastily before she rushed out of the room.

“Rachel!”, Finn shouted worriedly and followed her out of the room.

Carole and Burt looked confused. “Is she okay?”

“She’s pregnant with another dude’s baby because she slept with her ex after Finn made out with his now ex-girlfriend”, Puck explained. "And that's only the short version of the story."

The married couple exchanged bewildered glances. “Looks as if Finn will have a lot of explaining to do.”, Burt muttered.

…

Outside, Blaine took deep breaths and leaned against the wall of the house. Kurt was not dead, goddammit! How he knew that Kurt was alive? He just did, don’t ask him, how. His intuition told him that there was more to this story. And he wouldn’t give up until he knew exactly what had happened to him.

“Bad day?”, someone next to him suddenly asked, and Blaine looked up, startled.

Next to him, a guy was leaning against the wall as well with his arms crossed. He looked attractive with his emerald eyes, his light brown hair, and his pale complexion. Where the hell did he just come from? Blaine was sure that he had been alone all the time.

“You surely wonder where I came from, right, sexy?”, that guy spoke up and smirked at him. “The name’s Sebastian, I’m a _Homo Sensorium,_ a Sensate as well”, he explained.

Blaine was surprised. “But…how is that possible?” Apart from his nine friends, he had never met another Sensate before.

Sebastian laughed. “So the Council of the Elders didn’t explain to you how that Sensate thing works right?” He snorted. “That incompetent group of dotards. So, you and I, we are Sensates, right?”

“Right”, Blaine nodded slowly.

“Yes, but you are linked to a certain group of people, that’s what’s called a Cluster”, Sebastian went on patiently. “Clusters can be a group of at least three and maximum twelve people. But in some cases, Sensates can also talk to people from other clusters, like in our case.”

Blaine frowned, trying to process the information he just learned. “So you are from another Cluster?”

“That’s right”, Sebastian smirked. “I’m from Chicago, and I guess you are from Lima, right?”

Blaine shook his head. “Okay, I was born in Lima, but I moved to Milwaukee”, he explained.

“Nice.”, he commented, and Blaine just nodded. He was not in the mood for socializing, but Sebastian didn't seem to get it. “So why are you down, Blaine?”

“My boyfriend went missing”, Blaine answered without thinking, wondering whether it was a good idea to tell a stranger about his private life. “And there is no hope he is still alive. He was… _is_ in my Cluster as well.”

“I’m sorry” Sebastian genuinely sounded as if he was.

Blaine shook his head. “No offence, Sebastian, you seem to be a nice guy and all, but I’m not in the mood for talking right now.” _So would you please get lost now? I want to wallow in self-pity, just with me, myself and I._

Sebastian nodded. “Of course. And what if I just keep you company? Sometimes, the presence of another person is soothing enough.”

“Okay.” Blaine was too down to talk him out of this.

So the two of them were just leaning against the wall, listening to the birds singing beautifully and joyfully. But actually, their good-tempered singing didn’t match Blaine’s mood at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it ended like that, you guys *cryingMyEyesOut*   
> Please don't hate me now...


End file.
